


Miserable Flesh

by NaoNazo



Category: In The Flesh, Les Miserables
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, In The Flesh AU, M/M, Multi, Zombies, cannibalism mention, post-deceased syndrome sufferers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-08-11 12:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7892485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaoNazo/pseuds/NaoNazo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2008, Enjolras and his friends went to a protest, where he was shot, a young man who failed to become historic. In 2009, the dead began to rise, mindless, hungry for flesh. The government, which failed to protect smaller cities from the risen dead, finally rounded up the risen and began to medicate them, giving them medicine that gave them back their minds. Now, the undead, or "Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferers" are being rehabilitated and sent back to their communities. </p><p>Basically, the Les Miserables/ In the Flesh crossover that no one asked for.</p><p>*On hiatus</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Epitaph

Prologue:

Enjolras shrugged into the bright overcoat Courfeyrac had dubbed "shoot-me red" and regarded himself in the mirror, adjusting the pin on his chest until it didn’t dare tilt. Within hours, he knew, the coat would be covered in dust, if not pepper-spray or mud or other less savory substances, the pin would probably be torn off, and his face would be a mass of bruises. He raked a hand through his hair and sighed to let out the swelling feeling in his chest, like if he took one breath too big his lungs would escape their cages. After weeks of planning, it was revolution day.

  
From the bed, Cosette snorted. “Stop preening, you look like a parakeet about to get in a fight with itself.” Enjolras flushed slightly but gave up pulling his coat straight and turned around.

  
“I have to stand out from the crowd, it’s part of the plan—“ he started.

  
“It would be a better plan if you didn’t make yourself a target,” Cosette retorted. “Easier to get away after, like I’ve been telling you.”

  
“If we were looking to get away, we wouldn’t have set up the rally in the first place. And better they get me than someone who can’t bail themselves out.” Enjolras’s voice, never quiet, rang clearly throughout the room, reverberating against walls bare of even the slightest sign of teenage-hood. Cosette lay back on the bed with a fwump and rolled her eyes at the ceiling in judgment of the god who had given her an activist weirdo for a brother. She’d always suspected he kept the room so neat so that he could hear his voice better when practicing speeches. It would be way too depressing to ask and be proven right.

  
Enjolras sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, nearly on top of her shin. She tilted into him with a squawk and rolled the other way, back to him. Eyes fixed on the bare headboard, she muttered, “You’re an idiot to be going.”

  
“I’d be more of an idiot to get permits for, organize and lead a protest march without going, don’t you think?” Enjolras’s voice softened the way it only did when he was talking to his plants, or to their grandmother in the retirement home. Cosette hated when he used his soft voice, it felt too much like an attempt to manipulate her. She rolled back over to give him an unimpressed stare and added, “It would be an even better plan if I went with you. Then I wouldn’t be sitting here worrying all night and watching the news.”

  
“Yeah, you hate the news,” Enjolras agreed. Cosette slugged him in the shoulder and winced, shaking out her fingers.

  
“Think your twiggy arm just cracked my knuckles. Also not what I meant, dickhead.” Enjolras tried not to smile at the epithet, remembering how Cosette had called him that before she'd ever learned to pronounce his name. For a moment, Enjolras just looked at his sister, seeing the mulish set of her chin, the hand poised to give him another bruise if the first one didn’t stick. His own hands raised placatingly, Enjolras made a promise he couldn’t keep.

  
“I’ll be safe, Cosette, I swear. I need you here to get bail money if needed, and run interference over the dinner table.” Enjolras pulled a watch on a chain from his vest and clicked it open, fingers idly caressing the embossed dragon on one side. Cosette watched him gravely, her marble-grey eyes meeting his. It was difficult at times to remember that although Enjolras had claimed protection of her when she was brought to their house at three years old by social services, Cosette was actually the older of the half-siblings. Cosette allowed Enjolras to be protective, but it was more in her nature to shield him from some things, especially the attention of their parents. So she forced a smile and nodded, wished him well and slipped out the door ahead of him.

  
“Enjolras! Cosette! Come down for dinner!” His mother’s voice, normally soft as faded velvet, approached strident when she deemed her children guilty of the cardinal sin of lateness. Enjolras stalked out of his room without responding, tripping lightly down the stairs with staccato step. He nodded to Cosette when he overtook her in the hall, and as she entered the dining room, he grabbed his keys from the front table and left.

  
The sky was between day and night, in the slightly purple haze where the first intrepid stars were faintly visible and the sparse clouds silhouetted. He gazed up and breathed deep, tasting cool and clear wind on the back of his tongue. It was almost a waste to get into his car and drive, to cut himself off from the suburban peace and quiet. He shook the nostalgia away and clambered into the front seat, relaxing into the familiar thrumming growl of the engine.

  
Courfeyrac and Combeferre were waiting in front of their dorm building when Enjolras pulled up, although Courfeyrac had barely waved before he smacked his forehead with one hand and ran back into the complex. Combeferre smiled sedately and claimed shotgun, securing his seatbelt as Courfeyrac came pelting back, panting.

  
“Forgot my phone!” he wheezed, grinning like it was some great joke. Enjolras restrained himself to an affectionate eye-roll and shared a smirk with Combeferre. The three of them settled into their accustomed seats with Enjolras at the wheel, Combeferre acting as navigator, and Courfeyrac leaning forward from the backseat to wedge himself in the middle and fiddle periodically with the radio. From the outside, they would look exactly like three teenagers on their way to a night out on the town, maybe sneaking into an R-rated movie or bluffing their way into a nightclub. Only the strange energy seeming to emanate from the three of them, from Enjolras’s tense smile and brilliant eyes, Combeferre’s winking glasses and the smooth tide of his voice, Courfeyrac’s bouncing curls and the frenetic gestures of his hands, would hint at any larger cause behind their passage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for people who aren't familiar with In the Flesh, it's an adorable series about what happens after the zombie uprising when a cure has been found for zombie-ism. Things it's important to know about plot:
> 
> * The undead are called "Partially Deceased Syndrome" sufferers, or PDS sufferers for short. This is a government-created PC term and not necessarily what the undead themselves prefer to be called. People who hate them call them 'rotters.'
> 
> *In this series, all the people who died in 2008 come back to life-- no one who died sooner, no one who was killed by them. Zombie-ism isn't infectious, and no one knows why it began happening. In the series, the uprising first began in Roarton (where the main character lived), in my fanfic the starting place isn't important.
> 
> *Humans during the uprising tried to wait for the government to send out military to help them deal with the undead, but because it was so overwhelming, these forces were only sent to big cities and didn't go to smaller or more isolated places until later. In order to survive, most towns created Human Volunteer Forces (or HVF for short) to fight the undead. After most of the undead were rounded up and treated, the HVF grew mainly obsolete and lost a lot of the respect they'd gained. A lot of these volunteers are a) the most traumatized survivors of the uprising and b) retain the most prejudices against the undead.
> 
> *In the Flesh zombies are explained as having neurological impairments in their "untreated state," so they instinctively eat human brains to help their neurons keep working. They look pretty ghastly because their skin is a lot paler without any bloodflow, their wounds never heal, and if they eat anything that isn't brains they vomit up black stuff. Also their eyes all look like a new species of squid's or something, their irises are gone and their pupils are a different shape.
> 
> *Many major plot points from In the Flesh will appear in this series, but the characters will all be either Les Mis or OC's. 
> 
> and finally, trigger warnings:
> 
> In later chapters, there will be some graphic-ish depictions of people fighting zombies. I won't describe their deaths in detail, but some description of what it was like is necessary for character development. There will also be some description of imprisonment and people being experimented on in labs. I'll update the warnings by chapter as I write them.


	2. Dance in the Graveyards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Have you been doing the affirmations?” The assistant asked carefully. Enjolras laughed bitterly.
> 
>  
> 
> “I’m a PDS sufferer and what I did in my untreated state was kill and eat people,” he stated.
> 
>  
> 
> “Enjolras…”
> 
>  
> 
> “And now we’re all locked up for that, because humans don’t know what to do with monsters who start to think again.”
> 
>  
> 
> “You know that’s not true—You’ll be able to go home soon, just like everyone else who’s been cured,” Joly’s hand might have tightened on Enjolras’s shoulder, he dimly felt the press of fingers against his clavicle. Suddenly, it was too much, the pillowy weight of his own dead flesh, the cloying pity in Joly’s voice. He stood up violently, crossed the room to be out of the assistant’s reach.
> 
>  
> 
> “Yes, send the monsters home with their drugs and makeup, let them go back to the places they were buried, to the families who cried for them and then screamed at their shambling corpses. Send them all back, but leave me here, with the rest of the orphans”—he glared pointedly at Gavroche’s bed, at the table next to it bare of letters or belongings—“for my family won’t take me back anyway.”

Four Years Post-Rising:

His mouth tasted like something dead, which was entirely fair of it. The sun that pierced the lids of his eyes and painted them a dull grey was also, Enjolras was sure, within its rights. He just wished both would have the decency to stop. Groaning and rolling over solved the problem of the sunlight, but he could barely stand to touch his tongue to the roof of his mouth. At the sound of another being shuffling across the room, he managed to spark some brain cells together.

“Courf, you ass, you spiked my punch,” he muttered wearily.

  
“Day 21 of not being Core-fee-rac!” announced the bright voice of a boy not much older than ten. Enjolras groaned again, but sat up and blinked blearily in the direction of the voice. All his sun-blinded eyes could make out were a slim figure perched on the other bed, swinging their legs idly against the edge of the frame.

He wished desperately for a coffee, tea, hell, even a mouthful of nail polish remover would be preferable to the taste in his mouth. He had a sister, he knew what nail polish remover tasted like.

  
“Gavroche,” the kid prompted, apparently tired of waiting for him to get with the program. “You really didn’t miss out on any of the side effects, huuuuuh?”

  
And finally, Enjolras’s brain seemed to come back on-line. “Gavroche,” he repeated. Then he narrowed his eyes. “What did you do this time?”

  
“Me?” Gavroche’s wide eyes and slight pout suggested that never had an innocent boy been so wrongly persecuted. He couldn’t hold the face for more than a second before it fell back into his customary smirk. “Nuffin’ much, chief, just got your morning mail!”

  
Enjolras held out a hand for the envelope with one eyebrow raised, imperious. “Don’t call me chief, it’s archaic. I hold no authority over you—“ he broke off, examining the seams of the letter carefully. “Not even when regarding my mail, it appears.”

  
“That weren’t me, the guards read all the mail.” Gavroche shrugged, as if to say, ‘but what can you do?’

  
“And I’m sure you didn’t take a peek when you found it open,” Enjolras answered wryly. He wasn’t offended that the boy had satisfied his curiosity; it was hardly something he could have refrained from doing at the same age. “From Combeferre or Courfeyrac this time?” They were the only people in his life (hah!) that cared to write to him, the rest probably hoped they’d never see him again. Or hadn’t been as lucky as he had.  
“From your parents, chief.” Gavroche lost some of his smirk and kicked the frame a little harder. His parents, if indeed he had any (Enjolras wasn’t certain) had never contacted him. Enjolras held the envelope by the edges, running his fingers along the ragged seam where it had been opened. Rip it open like a Band-Aid, he told himself. Time to heal later.

Still, his hand hesitated to open it. He frowned at it and at himself, but still he didn’t open the letter. Gavroche coughed. “I can tell you what it says,” he offered. Enjolras shook his head, not trusting his voice. “It’s really not so bad,” Gavroche continued, voice carefully bland. He looked somewhat pityingly at his older roommate, who had never seemed so much like a marble statue as he did this minute.

This impression was not broken when Enjolras jerkily shook his head, and even more haltingly drew out the letter. His fingers were barely less pale than the creamy paper it was written on. Gavroche looked down at his feet to avoid seeing the expression of sick hope on Enjolras’s face. Eyes firmly fixed on his bare toes, he nevertheless heard the choked breath Enjolras couldn’t control, the whispered, almost pleading, “Cosette.”

One glance up at his roommate’s face and he wished he’d left the letter on the table and run, out to the recreation tables with no games or snacks. Gav bit his lip, wishing he could feel the sharp sting of his teeth like he used to. He wasn’t complaining about being brought back, no matter what had done it—but it was weird not to feel anything, or not to be able to feel fully.

Enjolras cleared his throat, face bent over the letter, shoulders uncharacteristically slumped. When he spoke, his voice was rough, but wry as always. “How is this not so bad?”

Gav licked his lips. “Your sister isn’t dead and your parents are fine,” he stated. Enjolras laughed bitterly.

“Missing in action might as well be dead,” he snapped back. A terrible smile curled his lips. “How many people do you think we left missing in action? Can you even remember? Do you see their blood, their brains on your hands?” His voice roared through the room and Gav glanced at the door, for the orderly that might come running.

“We had to eat,” he said. “It was us or them, mate, we weren’t in control or anything.” Dimly, he registered that his legs were kicking faster and faster against the bed, like he was running, almost.

“We killed them and they killed us back.” Enjolras’s voice lowered to a growl. “And the worst part is I remember it. I remember what skulls sound like when they break and how people stop struggling after they know they’re dead. I know what they taste like. I know how it feels to have them stuck in my teeth. Don’t give me that ‘us or them,’ we were monsters. Are monsters, without the drug.”

Gav couldn’t keep his lip from trembling, his eyes from watering. Whatever magic the doctors had worked with the cure drug, they’d managed to fix undead tear ducts. But he was a boy, nearly eleven, and he hadn’t cried since he died.

  
“You’re wrong, you’re the monster! I didn’t do nuffin’ wrong! ‘N I hate you!” he shouted, jumping from the bed to stand in front of Enjolras. Before the other could do more than draw a breath, he ran from the room, pelting towards the recreation area.

Some of the other inpatients let out tired warnings not to run too fast and bump into anything—dead skin doesn’t bruise, doesn’t feel pain, but most of all doesn’t heal—but he paid them no heed. There was only one person he wanted to see, one person who could make anything better, even this white-walled prison. Spotting the long braid and skinny frame of his target, Gavroche swerved his path like a hug-seeking missile and wrapped his arms around Jehan from behind.

  
Thin shoulders quavered with laughter beneath his hands. “Hello to you too, Gav.” Gav pressed his face between Jehan’s shoulder blades and took a breath, ignoring the wispy hair that inevitably got in his mouth. Jehan stood in silence, in perfect understanding, as he stood there and breathed. After a while, Jehan reached back and clasped their own hands around the boy, so the two stood there hugging and being hugged. Gav almost felt warm.

  
Breath by breath, the contact grew to be enough, and he slid around Jehan’s arms, brushing hair out of their face and grabbed Jehan again by the waist, so he could stand in front of them and tilt his face up for a smile. Jehan did not disappoint, running a hand over Gav’s forehead and beaming down at him.

“Enjolras is horrible,” Gav informed him, and Jehan gave a whooshing sigh.

  
“Yes,” they replied thoughtfully, “but he’s capable of being good as well. I’m sure in time he’ll figure out which one he wants to be and come apologize.” Gav frowned and stepped away, shoulders hunched. “But while we’re waiting for that, I can ask one of the orderlies to let us walk in the garden,” Jehan offered. Gav lifted a shoulder carelessly, which Jehan took as agreement. “Come on, if we’re lucky Bahorel will be on duty and you can ask him about boxing.”

\----

Alone in his room at last, Enjolras buried his face in his hands. With no light and only the distant sounds of vague chatter, he could almost feel the silence, the weight of the grave. Odd that he’d fought so hard to escape that dark prison, scrabbling at dirt until he could open his eyes to the first stars in appearance… and now that he was free, he wished he’d stayed buried. It was a cruel trick of the gods, to have died in a way that meant something, and then to be brought back as a monster and undo all the good he’d tried to accomplish with his life.

  
“Enjolras, you all right?” a voice called softly from the doorway. It was young, meek-faced Joly, the doctor’s assistant. “I didn’t see you at breakfast…”

  
“Well, we don’t eat anymore, so that would be why,” Enjolras muttered, from the cradle of his cupped hands. Behind him, a cane clicked gently closer, and a dull weight came to rest on his shoulder—Joly’s hand, attempting a comforting squeeze.

  
“Have you been doing the affirmations?” The assistant asked carefully. Enjolras laughed bitterly.

  
“I’m a PDS sufferer and what I did in my untreated state was kill and eat people,” he stated.

  
“Enjolras…”

  
“And now we’re all locked up for that, because humans don’t know what to do with monsters who start to think again.”

  
“You know that’s not true—You’ll be able to go home soon, just like everyone else who’s been cured,” Joly’s hand might have tightened on Enjolras’s shoulder, he dimly felt the press of fingers against his clavicle. Suddenly, it was too much, the pillowy weight of his own dead flesh, the cloying pity in Joly’s voice. He stood up violently, crossed the room to be out of the assistant’s reach.

  
“Yes, send the monsters home with their drugs and makeup, let them go back to the places they were buried, to the families who cried for them and then screamed at their shambling corpses. Send them all back, but leave me here, with the rest of the orphans”—he glared pointedly at Gavroche’s bed, at the table next to it bare of letters or belongings—“for my family won’t take me back anyway.”

  
Joly seemed nearly in tears, but he walked towards Enjolras steadily, fearlessly. “You’re not a monster, Enj,” he whispered, eyes shining. “You are the same man you have always been.” He stopped a half-step away from where Enjolras stood, framed in the window’s harsh light. The sun made a brilliant halo of Enjolras’s golden curls, throwing warm reflections into his marble skin. “You’re the furthest thing from a monster, and someday you’ll be able to see that too.” Greatly daring, he pulled the young man into a hug, wrapping his arms around that stiff, upright back. It took a few moments, but Enjolras did slump against him in a way that spoke of relief and resignation in equal measure.

  
Coming from a family of infrequent, awkward hugs, Enjolras very quickly grew uncomfortable with the contact and pulled away. Joly let him go, continuing to smile softly.

  
“No more talk of monsters, okay? Think it if you have to, but don’t say it around the others, they have their own battles to fight,” he requested. Enjolras nodded distractedly, running a hand through his hair. From his tight shoulders and downturned gaze, he was obviously expecting to be left alone soon. Joly acquiesced to this wordless plea and turned to head for the door. Before exiting, he paused briefly and said, “Your two friends have been calling daily to see if non-relatives can take in PDS sufferers once the ban lifts.”

  
Leaving that bit of hope like a warm yellow glint in the bottom of a stream, he left. Enjolras stood staring at the empty door for untold moments, before his eyes lifted to the stack of letters from Combeferre and Courfeyrac on his bedside table. Perhaps it was time to send a response.

 ------

Combeferre nearly set his elbow in his toast when Courfeyrac burst through the kitchen door. As it was, his coffee slopped over the mug and stained his sleeve. None of this mattered at all when he processed the words Courfeyrac was squealing over and over.

  
“Enjolras… wrote back?”

  
“YES, you goober, I just got the letter!” Courfeyrac was dancing with joy, which looked not unlike the bounce of a chihuahua with a tiny bladder. Combeferre refrained from commenting and held out a hand for the letter. Courfeyrac handed it over willingly and leaned over Combeferre’s shoulder, ostensibly to read it at the same time, but also to steal some of his toast.

  
Combeferre unfolded the sheet of paper and snorted. Written there, in their friend’s hurried scrawl, was a brief four lines.

  
_“Combeferre and Courfeyrac,_  
_I understand if you hate me, but I don’t have anywhere else to go._  
_Just until I can get a job or something?_  
_Enjolras”_

  
Courfeyrac snorted, directly into Combeferre’s ear. “Same old Enjolras,” he garbled through a mouthful of crumbs. “What d’ya wanna bet he went through multiple drafts to get to something this blunt?”

  
“No bet,” Combeferre answered, butting his head gently against Courf’s as retribution for the crumbs. “Look, you can see the indents on the paper from where he tried to write the last one.” Courf took the paper and held it up to the light, squinting.

  
“Aw, he started that one ‘Dear Courfeyrac and Combeferre!’ How polite!” He exclaimed. Combeferre huffed a fond sigh and abandoned his half-eaten toast and coffee to search for a pen and paper. It was just like Enjolras to force himself to send what amounted to the grumpiest “please let me crash” letter in the history of humankind, just so that he felt Courfeyrac and Combeferre might stand a better chance of refusing him.

  
“Stupid self-martyring…” Combeferre muttered, rummaging through his paper-strewn desk. Although Combeferre was unfailingly neat with his wardrobe and the rest of his belongings, his work-space always managed to become a leaning morass of old papers and scraps of writing he’d never quite gotten around to throwing away. The walls, too, were cluttered with pictures and newspaper cutouts, headlines the three of them had made with their exploits in high school and their first disastrous year of college. Combeferre raised his hand to the one clipping he’d put up and torn down so many times that it was punctured with thumbtack holes everywhere but the bold black headline, “FRESHMAN ACTIVIST GUNNED DOWN.”

  
The article was full of inaccuracies, soppy platitudes Enjolras would have hated. He supposed, when Enjolras came back, he’d have a chance to hate it in person.

  
When he came back into the kitchen, both toast and coffee were gone. Well, he’d expected no less. At least Courfeyrac was already at the counter pouring him a new cup—there were advantages to rooming with someone who shared your exact coffee preferences.

The letter they sent back to the treatment that center was a brief four lines.

  
_“Dear Enjolras,_  
_We’ll pick you up when you’re ready._  
_Love,_  
_Courfeyrac and Combeferre”_

 --------

Two days later:

The dead sat in an awkward circle, their faces a couple shades too cold from lack of blood flow, their eyes pinpricks of colorless light. Many of them were visibly wrong in some way—flesh peeling from their faces, open wounds on arms and legs that should have bled. Enjolras clasped his shirt tighter around his torso, feeling the indents on his chest where the bullets had gone through. He didn’t like to feel the parts of his back where they had burst out of him, it was unsettling to grope with his fingers and to barely be able to sense the boundaries where his flesh gaped open. Still, he was lucky, very lucky compared to some of the others around. His face was untouched, he’d lost none of his hair, his arms and legs were whole and as fit as they’d ever been. If he kept his shirt on and put the makeup on, he might even pass for living.

  
“—Enjolras.” The moderator had obviously called his name more than once, judging by the smirks of the others in his group. Gavroche sat back and curled his lip, definitely not ready to forgive Enjolras for stating the truth the other day.

  
“What?” He saw no reason to apologize for drifting off, group sessions never held his interest for long. Groups of reanimated people talking about how they were going to ‘reclaim their lives’ and ‘get over their guilt’ like it was some step in a self-help book.

  
“We were just talking about what we were looking forward to when we got home,” the moderator continued. Enjolras groped mentally for his name and failed. He had a feeling it wasn’t very interesting either.

  
“Well, my family is terrified of me, so I’m staying with some friends until they get wise enough to toss me out,” he answered. Predictably, the moderator pounced on the chance to try and twist his words.

  
“What do you mean by ‘wise enough?’” The guy asked, leaning forward in a way he probably thought was earnest. It made him look like a squatting chimpanzee.

  
“I mean that if they had any sense, they’d want nothing to do with me.” Enjolras caught Gavroche’s eye-roll and continued. “And before you ask me why, do I really need to remind you all why we’re here? We. Killed. People.” He felt a bitter surge of satisfaction when the rest of the group shifted awkwardly in their seats. Gavroche just glared at him. He addressed the rest of his comments to the boy, staring back at his pinprick eyes. “And they killed us, because they were trying to survive. Now we’re supposed to go back out in society and, what, hope for the best? Hope that no one forgets their meds and that none of the HVF decides to make their lives a little easier by killing us all? That’s more than naïve, that’s blind optimism.”

  
The moderator made soothing motions with his hands, but Gavroche sat forward and burst out, “If you don’t like it, you can die again!” His high, clear voice rang out over the room, with other small groups turning to look.

  
“Just die, if you think that’s what you should do. But don’t expect that to fix anything.” Gavroche’s face was almost ugly, his eyebrows drawn together over deep-set eyes. “Some of us are happy to have another chance to see the people we love. And you don’t get to make me feel bad about that. So nut up or knuckle down, Enjolras. Your friends are waiting for you, don’t take this out on them too.” He jumped out of his chair, throwing a final shot over his shoulder. “Jehan said you used to believe in people.”

  
Looking around at the stunned faces of the group and Enjolras’s shuttered expression, the moderator cleared his throat and clapped his hands. “How does everyone feel about a half hour recess?” They departed with grateful murmurs and slunk out of the assembly room. Enjolras sat and brooded, turning Gavroche’s words over and over in his mind. Was it true? Had he become what he swore he never would, a cynic? Looking over his actions in the past few days,hell, months, it appeared so. Yet how was he supposed to maintain that bright fire that had sustained him, the belief in essential human goodness, when he had the blood of so many on his hands?

  
He could almost feel the warmth of their lives slipping through his fingers, sliding across his tongue. The hunger he had felt mixed queasily with his retrospective horror—if he could have retched, he would have.

  
“I don’t want to be like this,” he whispered. A low, warm chuckle answered him. Caught up in his thoughts, he hadn’t noticed Jehan had come up to stand beside his chair.

  
“Enjolras…” Jehan threaded their fingers through Enjolras’s hair, carding it out of his forehead affectionately. With a sudden smile like the sun glinting through rain clouds, they pulled a pen from one of the many pockets they’d managed to accumulate on the threadbare sweater they wore and leaned forward to write something on Enjolras’s arm. It looked like a website with a password. “For whenever you feel like you’re truly alone… this guy is an amazing speaker.”

  
Enjolras read the elegant cursive spider-webbed across his skin. “The Undead Prophet?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Jehan smiled back mysteriously for as long as they could hold the expression, then grinned and began to hustle Enjolras outside.

  
“You’ve had enough brooding for one day!” They cried. “Come outside and photosynthesize with the rest of us.”

  
“… You do know we aren’t plant zombies, right?” Enjolras couldn’t help but ask, as Gavroche came running up to them. Just as the boy pulled to a stop in front of Jehan, the poet got a mischievous look in his eye.

  
“Oh, I don’t know, Enj… You’d make a superb sunflower!” In response to Jehan's gentle teasing, Gavroche burst into laughter. Enjolras had to purse his lips to keep from smiling in response. Jehan would have none of it, however. They put a hand on Enjolras’s cheek and pressed a thumb to the edge of his mouth, lifting it manually. “Come on, show us your pearly whites,” they cooed sappily. Gavroche wheezed with laughter when Enjolras obligingly lifted his lips in a snarl.

  
“You’re ridiculous,” the boy stated, once he had his breath back. Enjolras lifted an eyebrow in response.

Gavroche’s smile slipped away somewhat. “Don’t think this means I forgive you, though.”

  
Enjolras shrugged. “I’m leaving tomorrow, you have some time to enjoy your single room.” Jehan and Gavroche both turned to him with their mouths open.

  
“Tomorrow?” Jehan croaked. Gavroche sighed deeply.

  
“Guess I have no choice but to forgive you now.” He frowned at Enjolras as if condemning his bad timing. “Come on, we need to tell Bahorel and Joly that you’re leaving.” Jehan tugged at Enjolras’s wrist so he had no choice to follow where Gavroche sprinted off. He would never admit it, but it felt somewhat nice, the dull weight of Jehan’s hand around his wrist, keeping him close. Nice enough that he gave him his email when asked (Cosette had chosen his handle, redavenger1832), not only to Jehan and Gavroche, but to Joly, Bahorel, even the depressingly sincere moderator.

  
That night was the first night he looked up at the blank ceiling and didn’t know exactly what to expect from the next day. Gavroche gave periodic high-pitched whistles from his bed, his version of snoring raucously. For once, Enjolras didn’t wrap the pillow around his head and try to sleep. He stared at the ceiling, turning over the thoughts in his head like a child turns over stones at a river-bank, looking for salamanders. At some point when the sky was nearly light, he let heavy eyelids complete their downward course and lost himself in dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from Delta Rae's "Dance in the Graveyards," partially because I really like the song and partially because it seems to be Jehan's jam. Here, have a link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPOM0IUsd_0
> 
> Trigger warnings: brief descriptions of cannibalism, characters traumatized by having been cannibals while zombiefied


	3. Flashbacks

One year post-Rising: 

A young Black woman clad in camouflage rummaged through the shelves of a grocery store. The hydrogen lights leached the flush from her face and painted her curly hair with sparks of light. She was speaking into a radio.

            “No, Cosette, there aren’t any of your favorite biscuits. Trust me, I checked.” She grabbed something off the shelf and stuffed it into her cart, smiling. “Well, we’ll just have to make do, won’t we?” That taken care of, she tossed the radio into the bed of the cart and turned to go. After a step or two, she looked carefully over both shoulders. There was no one else in the store.

            Whooping with childish glee, she took a running start and threw herself on the cart, balancing her waist on the handlebars like a gymnast. Cart and girl sped through the aisle, gathering speed until—

            WHAM. The cart hit something in its path and jolted off-course, throwing the girl to the floor. Scrabbling desperately for a purchase, she landed hard on her elbow and knee. Something cracked audibly and she let out a howl. Her leg was on fire, hot-white pain throbbing from her knee and radiating to her hip. She reached out for the cart, for the walkie-talkie, and her fingers landed on something solid and just barely warm.

            For the first time, she looked at the object that had blocked her path and gulped back another scream. It was a man, wide staring eyes peering out of a ruined face. She could see the hollow inside his skull… and the rotter that had done it might still be close. Desperately, she fumbled for the gun hanging at her hip, scrambling back with a hiss of pain to set her back against the nearest shelf.

            Shambling footsteps approached from her left and she tried to make the shot, aiming her trembling gun at the rotter’s head. The gun clicked, jammed, she sobbed hysterically and tried to reload it while the rotter moved forward with a horrible intent look in its pale eyes. She shot at it again, managing to clip it in the shoulder—it was a male, she noted, with long ginger hair in an unkempt braid, with features that would have been attractive if they weren’t covered in blood—and scrambled to her feet, limping away as fast as she could. Every step she took wrenched a groan from her throat, as it ground the bones in her leg with sick clicks. The rotter behind her was gaining on her, she could almost smell its sickly sweet decay behind her.

            All of a sudden, the lights went out. “Shit, shit, shit,” she cried, no longer caring who might hear. There was another one in front of her, with its hand on the light switch. Good god, they were intelligent, they were trapping her. She raised the hand with the gun, but the rotter at the lights lunged at her, his pale face caught in a snarl. Her eyes caught on his halo of gold curls as he slammed her back into the shelves, bashing the back of her head until her eyes dimmed completely. The golden-haired rotter pulled her limp body forward, eyeing it with his head cocked, like a crow eyes a corpse on the battlefield. He bent his head to—

 

 

            “ENJOLRAS!” Small hands beat at his shoulders, which registered as dull thuds, like being hit with a small pillow. He opened his eyes to Gavroche’s worried face.

            “mmh.. wha..?” For some reason, his voice was rough and scratchy, like he had a cold. Gavroche pulled his hands away slowly and stepped back, giving him space to sit up.

            “You okay, chief? You were…” Gav would have blushed if his skin cells still received blood. Instead, he brushed at his cheeks, swiping a finger under each eye. Dazedly, Enjolras copied him and felt a strange slipperiness… tears. He’d been crying. Gavroche shifted his feet, obviously contemplating whether he should run to get Joly or Jehan or some other adult. Enjolras forced his lips into something like a smile.

            “Fine. I just… Dream.” He rubbed his eyes briskly and swung his feet out of bed, reaching for the clothes stacked on his bedside table. It was a bittersweet thing, to put on jeans and a t-shirt after weeks of hospital pajamas. There was even a red jacket for him, which he supposed must have been Joly’s influence. The young doctor’s assistant had unsubtly asked his favorite color a few days ago, and the soft warmth of the item matched Joly’s brand of thoughtfulness perfectly. He wasn’t sure if it was cold enough to merit a jacket, but the days dawned early and thin clouds iced their way across the sky, so it might be fall or early winter. Regardless of the practicality of such a gift, the warmth touched him, the message it held of affection and hope. Cosette had given him winter wear for four Christmases running, she had used to joke that he was so thin the wind blew right through him…

            Jehan’s entrance disrupted his thoughts, as the longhaired nymph swept in and spun him around by the shoulders into a perfect, bone-crushing hug. “Don’t forget us when you’re out in the free world, smelling the citrus pine of ancient forests,” they cried out, laying their head against Enjolras’s shoulder and peering up at him soulfully. Enjolras cracked a small smile.

            “Not sure we’re able to smell anymore, but if they cure that, it won’t be pine we inhale,” he responded practically. “Exhaust and tobacco are more likely.” Jehan smacked him lightly on the cheek—more like a tap than a slap—and stepped back, eyeing him critically.

            “You have no poetry in your soul,” they pronounced. With a sly once-over, they grinned, “But I bet your ass is poetry in those jeans.” Feeling slightly foolish, Enjolras turned around to display said ass for Jehan’s judgment. Both the poet and the boy still in the room erupted into giggles.

            “What?” he frowned.

            “Your FACE!” Gavroche gasped. “You’re like the grumpiest stripper ever!” Enjolras huffed out a sigh, but couldn’t quite shake the light feeling sweeping through his chest. It was nice, to be laughing with others again, to be wearing real clothes. He could almost pretend he was human again.

            With a tentative knock on the doorframe, Joly entered the room, carrying a precarious stack of small boxes. He, too, ran his eyes up and down Enjolras’s figure in approval. As he dumped his stack on the bed, he crowed, “I knew that color would be good on you!” Jehan turned gravely to the doctor and bowed.

            “We of the reanimated thank you for your services in clothing Enjolras. Heaven knows he couldn’t do it himself.” Rather than rise to the bait, Enjolras restrained himself to an eye-roll and picked up one of the boxes, checking the label.

            “Contact lenses?” he read, glancing at Joly. The doctor nodded vigorously.

            “I got all the shades of blue we had so you could find the best fit,” he affirmed. Then, confidingly, “You’re lucky you’re leaving early, we might have to give the late-goers all brown.” Enjolras opened his mouth to protest the special treatment—who was he to receive the best of the bounty?— when Jehan shook their head at him, mouthing ‘be nice.’

            Nice? What did that have anything to do with—He looked back at Joly, who stood fiddling with his cane, lips pulled back in a nervous half-smile. With the sweater and the contact lenses, it seemed like Joly had put a lot of effort into making sure his departure was pleasant. Decisively, he gathered the boxes to himself and smiled at Joly, wide enough to be believable.

            “Thank you, my friend. I appreciate the thoughtfulness,” he said, somewhat stiltedly. Joly’s smile widened into a grin and he bounced forward to give Enjolras a light hug before promising to be back when needed and skipping out of the room. Enjolras was left blinking in shock. Gavroche whistled at the occurrence.

            “If I didn’ know ‘e was boinking Bossuet and ‘Chetta, I’d say ‘e _liked_ you,” he remarked. Enjolras blinked again, nearly dropping the boxes.

            “I haven’t done anything for him,” he said numbly. Jehan and Gavroche exchanged pitying looks and gave up, each grabbing an arm so they could drag him over to the mirror.

            “You’ll figure it out one day,” Jehan said placidly. “Now try on your eyes, there’s a good lad.”

 

 -------

Courfeyrac and Combeferre sat on a wooden bench, hard and comfortless like a pew in an abandoned church. A poster of a pale-faced PDS sufferer with pinprick eyes and the caption, “I’m just like you” was the only decoration in the waiting room. Combeferre supposed it was too early days in curing PDS to have coherent pamphlets about it like in doctors’ offices. Courfeyrac simply stared at the door hungrily, not unlike a loyal hound awaiting its master. Neither had said a word since they were ushered in to wait, as if a single syllable might break the spell silence had spun, and scare away their hope.

            Hours, ages, epochs later the door opened and Enjolras stepped in. They caught their breath. Their friend’s face was a slightly unnatural shade of tan, his eyes were a chlorine blue that didn’t match their natural shade, his golden hair was a mass of untamed curls. But the first detail either noticed was that he glanced at their faces only briefly before dropping his eyes to the floor, like sight was a limited commodity and he’d run out of the funds to pay for it. Courfeyrac sprang from his seat and threw himself into a hug, clipping their friend sharply in the chin with his shoulder in the process. Combeferre found himself laughing breathlessly until his eyes swam with tears threatening to spill.

            “Enjolras,” he choked out, and that was all Courfeyrac seemed to want to say, as well. “Enjolras, Enjolras, Enjolras…” Their friend raised his eyes to meet his, studying Combeferre’s face as he lifted his arms with glacier slowness to wrap them around Courfeyrac’s shaking shoulders. Confusion, guilt, sorrow and naked hope were in his eyes, his face, his careful, trembling hands.

            “Courfeyrac… Combeferre…” The words pulled themselves out of him, from some deep place inside that nothing else had been able to reach. With the weariness of a soldier on the battlefield, he let himself relax inch by inch into Courfeyrac’s grasp, keeping his eyes on Combeferre’s bright ones.

            “Welcome back,” Courfeyrac whispered in his ear. “Enjolras, mon ami, welcome back.”

 

            If the mousse on Enjolras’s face had smeared a little below the eyes and his friends were red-eyed and sniffling when they all managed to leave the room, none of those gathered breathed a word. Jehan tucked a flower they’d found behind Enjolras’s ear, winked at Courfeyrac and Combeferre and ordered them all to stay in touch. Gavroche merely grinned at his ‘chief’ and refused to promise to stay out of trouble. When Enjolras had awkwardly hugged everyone goodbye and clambered into the back of Courfeyrac and Combeferre’s box-crowded mini-van, he was surprised to feel… not entirely relieved about leaving the asylum. Controlling or not, it had been a safe place, one where he was among others of his kind. Sitting behind his living friends, half-listening to their excited chatter about the movies he’d missed and celebrity gossip, he leaned his head against the window and watched the occasional bird fly beneath ice-thin clouds. Time enough to find out how humans lived now, to see if he deserved to live among them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: descriptions of zombie attack


	4. Welcome to the New Age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras sat dumb through it all, absorbing. It was, he hoped, exactly what he would have done in their shoes. Heat washed behind his eyes, gratitude and guilt that they’d looked out for him when he was nothing but a mindless killing machine. “You kept fighting,” he said, as simply as he could. Courf and ‘Ferre grinned, understanding what he couldn’t say. You didn’t lose hope. You kept the light going when I thought it had burnt out.
> 
>  
> 
> He cleared his throat. “I want in,” he stated. “But first, I need to know about Cosette.”

Bit by bit, the conversation pattered to a comfortable silence. Combeferre drove as he did everything, smoothly and with a kind of effortless caution. Courfeyrac, after attempting to fill Enjolras in on every social media development he'd missed, had nodded off against the window like a child worn out from a play-date. Enjolras smiled to notice how he groaned sleepily whenever the car went over a particularly large bump. Enjolras, for his part, kept his eyes on the horizon, waiting for the winding highways to shift themselves into familiar alleys and cul de sacs. It took him a few hours to wonder how far they’d come from the asylum, how far it was from their erstwhile home. Only when they turned off of the main roads and started to head into the hills did it occur to him that they might not be going home. It had been nearly five years, after all. Maybe home no longer existed as it had.

“Are we close?” he asked, when the sun started to flirt with the hills and cast long shadows in its wake. Combeferre threw him a glance in the rear-view mirror and smiled.

  
“Another half an hour or so. Want me to turn on the radio?” He took one hand off the wheel and hovered it over the dash, waiting. Enjolras shrugged.

  
“Might be nice to hear the news,” he muttered. With a nod, Combeferre switched the radio to a grainy local news station and they listened silently to the talk show hosts introducing their esteemed guest, Reverend Myriel. The religious man had a soft, carrying voice, and seemed to be urging that people accept the “returned” as miracles from God, and treasure them as they had in life. Enjolras snorted, but shook his head when Combeferre looked back questioningly. After some minutes of this idealistic drivel, Enjolras was about ready to ask for some classical music when the host announced that it was time to hear from their call-in listeners. With a sensation in the pit of his stomach like anticipated dread, Enjolras sharpened his ears.

  
“And from the little town of _______, we have a Mr. Javert. Welcome to the air!” The host cried. Almost before he had finished, the caller interrupted with a deep clearing of the throat.

  
“Rotters are an abomination, the ultimate evil,” a rough, hoarse voice stated. “They are the devil in the form of our dead, come back to eat of the innocent until they are sated. There is no—“

  
“Hey now, hey now, it’s fine to have an opinion but you can’t say all that on air,” the host said nervously, sounding like he was having to loosen his collar. “I—I can see that we have another caller, this one from… a payphone in _________. Mr. Anonymous, you are on air!”

  
“Thank you.” If Javert’s voice was deep, this one plumbed chasms, areas of the deep sea where cameras had never gone, where pale long-legged things skittered in the total absence of light. This was the voice Batman wished he had. Enjolras found a shiver crawling its way up his spine in a way that had nothing to do with physical sensation. The voice continued, “Those who were redeemed from the earth are blessed, for they have conquered the ravages of time.” It seemed to be starting some kind of religious rant, but Combeferre switched it off with a tense smile.

  
“That’s… been happening somewhat frequently,” he said in response to Enjolras’s wordless question. “R—PDS sufferer extremists like to cause mayhem in the news when they can.”

  
Enjolras turned back to the window, fingering the area under his sleeve where Jehan had written the name to look up when he got home. Maybe the Undead Prophet was one of those extremists, but he didn’t think Jehan would have given him the information if they thought it was some cult. Besides, people had called Enjolras an extremist when he was alive, and he’d only been trying to make his country a better place for all its people.

  
Just as Combeferre made a turn onto a gravel road, Courfeyrac jerked out of sleep and smacked his lips with a disgusted sound. “Why does napping make your mouth tastes so bad?” he asked pitifully.

  
“That would be your breath,” Combeferre responded serenely. Enjolras cracked a smile, the first one that had felt real for a long time. They pulled up to a stop in front of a sprawling house with vacant windows covered by curtains. It was definitely beyond the rent Courfeyrac and Combeferre had been able to afford the summer before college, and Enjolras was mildly tempted to ask what professions they’d gone into. Back when they were together, they’d talked about being lawyers and going into practice together, but there was no way they’d managed to finish their degrees in the nearly four years he’d been ravaging the countryside.

  
He could just ask them what they'd been doing. Where Combeferre had gotten the scar that peeked out over the collar of his shirt, why three of Courfeyrac's fingers didn't seem to bend all the way anymore. But it felt like acknowledging that gap in his knowledge would change them, make them remember he was just a monster in the skin of their old friend. And maybe it was the coward's way out, but he didn't want them to hate him, not when he'd just gotten to see them again. Not when they were everyone and everything he had left.

  
“Up and at ‘em lazybones! Help us shift some of these boxes,” Courfeyrac ordered, rapping on Enjolras’s window to wake him from his reverie. He reluctantly swung his legs out of the car, anticipating stiffness from the long, cramped ride… but, of course, his muscles didn’t work like that anymore.

  
At least he still had enough nerve sensors to tell that the boxes were -startlingly heavy, when he hefted two of them to bring inside. All of them had the letter “E” scrawled across the top, a fact he noticed without really absorbing. Combeferre directed him to set the boxes down in a room at the top of the stairs that was mostly bare, with a bed, a desk and one of his favorite Flobots posters hanging on the walls.

  
Looking closer, he was touched by the details they had thought to include, even with the sparse decoration. The bed-sheets were turned up, and they’d somewhere found him a bedspread of his favorite deep red. The desk, though somewhat worn and scratched, had a one of the roll-down tops he’d admitted to admiring as a kid, and was full of tiny drawers and compartments like a probably-not-mahogany beehive. The window looked out over the backyard, which seemed like an unkempt mass of greenery from this angle, and had thick curtains that would keep out the majority of midday light if he wanted them to. Even the bedside table with the lamp was, Enjolras felt, carefully situated to make sure he could read into the night at his leisure. He looked back at Courf and ‘Ferre standing in the doorway and grinned.

  
“Thanks… Really. It’s—“ he didn’t get any further before Courf rammed into him with a whoop and gave him a hug that left him breathless. Combeferre beamed fondly at the both of them until Courfeyrac gestured at him to join in. Standing in that room, with his arms around two of his favorite people, Enjolras was content to merely be.

  
When they disentangled, Combeferre went downstairs to fetch scissors and Courfeyrac struggled hilariously to open the boxes without. When the first came open with much twisting, ripping and swearing, Enjolras’s mouth dropped open. It was… The rest of the boxes one by one revealed their treasures and Enjolras felt nearly sick with it. His books, his clothes, even, christ’s sake, his old computer.

  
“How did you—“ he breathed, unable to finish. They hadn’t robbed his family, had they? All this trouble, just for him?

  
Courfeyrac looked up, shaking his bangs out of his eyes with a grin. “Cosette helped us bag all this after,” he faltered.

  
“The funeral,” Combeferre supplied smoothly. “Your parents wanted to donate it, since they couldn’t keep it in the house….” Enjolras curled his lips in a mirthless smile. He could see his mother weeping at the funeral and going home dry-eyed to clear his room out the day after. She was not a woman who valued emotion above efficiency. Harder was thinking about Cosette living in that house without him to turn to, walking by his empty room every day.

  
“Have you heard from Cosette?” he made himself ask. His friends glanced at each other and shook their heads slowly. He caught the glance and felt familiar heat in his stomach, the roiling that he could never stop once it had started. In high school, he had welcomed the fury, believing it made him more effective, more connected to the cause. Now it made him feel like he wanted to throw up.

  
“You shouldn’t have to do this,” he blurted. “You shouldn’t—I’m a killer, I KILLED people, you should be running for the hills, you should be safe away from people like me.” Courfeyrac opened his mouth, but Combeferre stepped forward, hands raised like white flags.

  
“Enjolras…” he said softly, reaching out. Enjolras stepped back, legs hitting the edge of the bed.

  
“You should be disgusted to touch me! I’m a reanimated corpse, I’m not him, I’m not the person you… knew.”

  
He hesitated over the last word, because Courfeyrac and Combeferre had not been people he had known. He’d known things about them, tiny things they’d shared over the years that amounted to what felt like the majority of his life, of his memories. He’d known their school-box lunches and parental arguments, known that Courfeyrac ran away to Combeferre’s house in the first grade and got lost in a park for three hours, known that they’d both come to his house and spent weekends sleeping on the floor next to his bed when his grandfather passed away, known that he and Combeferre had once conspired with the entire marching band to give Courfeyrac spontaneous musical telegrams for three weeks running, and that Courfeyrac had tried to get back at them by using the PA system to make fun of them but in the end, all he’d been able to do was say, “Ahm… er… Combeferre and Enjolras are jerks but I love them anyway,” and hightail it before the principal caught him. It was impossible to know someone else that well and not love them.

  
“So maybe you’re not,” Combeferre said quietly, lowering his hand while Courfeyrac made an outraged noise behind him. “But we’re not afraid and we’re not disgusted. Will you give us a chance to know you now?”

Enjolras could see what it was costing Courfeyrac not to jump forward with his own assurances, but this was another familiar pattern for them. When the two thought he was being unreasonable, or stressing himself out for no reason, Combeferre came forward with gentle, reasonable words and Courfeyrac held himself in reserve for creating distractions. It would be easy to allow them back into that pattern, easy to fall back into that way of life. But it wouldn’t be what he deserved, not nearly.

  
“I can’t—“ he began.

  
“No need to decide now,” Combeferre cut him off, beginning to move backwards like a zookeeper trying not to frighten a cornered animal. “We’ll leave you alone to unpack.” Courfeyrac sighed and followed when he gestured to the door, but turned back to focus pleading eyes on Enjolras’s.

  
“If we have a movie night tonight, will you come?” he asked pathetically. Despite himself, despite everything, Enjolras wavered.

  
“Depends on the movie,” he said finally, and was rewarded with a grin before Courf darted out to join Combeferre downstairs. Standing alone in the refuse of his old life, Enjolras sighed and bent forward to open one of the closest boxes.

\--------

For the first time in several months, Enjolras slept through the first light of dawn. Perks of having a bedroom facing west, he supposed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and glancing at the digital clock on his bedside table. It was the Mulan alarm clock Cosette had given him one Christmas as a gag gift—she knew it was the only Disney movie he would admit to liking, and the alarm played “Be a Man” at ear-splitting volume. He had gotten back at her somehow… was it the choreographed disney medley telegram on her birthday? Courf would know; he’d probably helped plan it. He'd been their in with the school's hiphop team.

  
Enjolras headed to the bathroom and leaned in the doorway when he saw Courf was already brushing his teeth. “Morning,” he mumbled, seeking his friend’s eyes in the mirror.

  
He’d barely finished the word before he had to duck to avoid impalement on Courfeyrac’s toothbrush. Completing his lunge, Courfeyrac body-slammed Enjolras to the ground and knelt over him, aiming the electric toothbrush like he planned to drill it through Enjolras's skull. Slowly, Enjolras raised his hands above his head, universal surrender style. The blank look in Courfeyrac’s eyes faded, replaced by understanding and chagrin.

  
“Sorry, Enj,” he said easily, leaning down to pull his friend back to his feet. “Old habits.”

  
Numbly, Enjolras accepted the hand up. Back in high school, Courfeyrac had been the least inclined to fight of them all, preferring to joke his way into everyone’s good graces and walk away friends. Jesus, he’d even made Montparnasse laugh once when the guy had a knife aimed at him. Whatever old habits Courfeyrac was talking about, he hadn’t acquired them while Enjolras was alive.

  
“Were you in… the human volunteer force?” He ventured. Courfeyrac snorted, cramming the toothbrush back into his mouth.

  
“Nah,” he mumbled around it. “Wasn’t our thing. Everyone learned how to fight, though.” He leaned back in the doorway, eyeing Enjolras while the toothbrush buzzed gently. With a mouth full of foam, he slurred, “Y’might not want to stand behind anyone without your eyes in,” then bent over the sink to spit.

Over his hunched back, Enjolras caught sight of his reflection. Tan had smeared on pale skin where he had been less than thorough wiping the mousse away last night, and his pinprick eyes blinked back at him, alien.

  
“Yeah, uh… sorry.” He turned to head back to his room. Courfeyrac shifted behind him but said nothing.

Choosing not to look back, Enjolras shut himself in his room with a book until he heard footsteps descending the stairs.

In the bathroom, he carefully swept mousse over his cheekbones and brow, blending it like they’d taught in the asylum. That day they’d been separated into groups and told to choose the shade that best fit their previous skin tone—not that there had been more than five shades to choose from. Men and women had gathered to share tips on how to keep the coats even, where to end the makeup so it covered the skin and avoided smearing on clothing. One of the girls had even joked that it took being dead to find a decent concealer.

Grimacing, Enjolras widened his eyes to put in the contacts. He’d never really scrutinized his face in a mirror before—his hair was blond, his eyes were blue, that had always held constant before—so he wasn’t sure how accurate the contacts were to his original color. They were authentic-looking, neither too light nor too mottled, but they lacked something he was hard pressed to describe. Depth, maybe.

  
Human façade completed, Enjolras pulled his hair back into a French braid, fingers working more on memory than sensation. Cosette was the one who’d pleaded with him to let his hair grow in elementary so she could practice braids, like a living doll. They’d spent hours watching youtube tutorials of waterfall, mermaid, fishtail, four-strand braids until she could recreate them perfectly on both their heads. Their father had put a stop to it in high school by bargaining with Enjolras to give him a used car if he cut his hair—a gay son he could live with, but an effete one had been too much, apparently. He'd only just grown his hair past his shoulders again when college started.

  
The style might have made him look effeminate (not that that was a huge stretch, with what Courf had referred to as his “delicate features”), but it kept his hair from his face and therefore out of the mousse. Reaching for a hair-tie, Enjolras came up empty. Of course Courf and ‘Ferre didn’t have hair-ties, they had no use for them. Combeferre kept his hair short and Courf's curls swallowed brushes whole. Maybe he could get a bit of ribbon in the kitchen.

  
Braving the stairs, Enjolras followed the sound of voices into the living room, looking for Combeferre. He found him, Courfeyrac and a freckly stranger sitting on the couches, deep in some conversation. They broke off smoothly when he entered, all glancing up.

  
“Hey, ‘Ferre, just looking for a bit of ribbon,” he said, pulling the end of his braid over his shoulder to hold it more securely. The freckled boy’s mouth dropped open and his face shone with what looked like awe.

  
“You’re him,” he breathed. Courfeyrac giggled, while Combeferre stood up with a sigh to get the ribbon. “You’re Cosette’s brother.” Enjolras snapped his head to meet Freckle Boy’s eyes.

“You know Cosette? Do you know where she is?” he asked. Without really registering moving, he’d come to stand over the stranger, hands clasped to the arms of his chair, caging him in. Courfeyrac cleared his throat and laid a hand on his shoulder, gently pulling him back.

  
“Let Marius breathe, okay?” he said, drawing his words out soothingly. Enjolras let himself be pulled back, watching the color slowly come back to Marius’s face. “He doesn’t know any more than we do,” Courfeyrac continued, “but we do know she’s alive. And okay.”

  
Enjolras sank back into the couch, keeping Courfeyrac and Marius in his field of vision. Something about the way Courfeyrac had phrased it rang strangely through his mind, niggling at the doubt that had been growing since his best friend had nonchalantly thrown him to the ground that morning. As Combeferre re-entered the room, Enjolras found his words.

  
“I think,” he said carefully, “it’s time you told me what you’ve been up to.”

  
Combeferre came to rest a hand on his shoulder and, by the feel of it, finish off his braid. Courfeyrac sighed and sat down heavily next to him. Like that, with Marius their quiet audience, Courf and Ferre spun out the tale of how they’d created a subversive defense league during the middle of the Rising.

  
“—but it was really Mr. Lamarque who helped us begin it,” Courfeyrac explained, once he’d grinned his way through describing how he’d nearly died trying to capture the undead without killing (re-killing?) or harming them. “He saw this little girl in the woods who didn’t attack anyone, not a sheep or anything. Turned out there was an older one, maybe her mom, who would come bring her brains to eat, so she would stay safe and hidden. So Mr. Valjean said there must be something worth saving about them, and if we let the HVF kill everyone, we’d never find out what that was.”

  
Combeferre circled around the couch to drop down next to Courfeyrac. Leaning forward, he added, “We knew you might be one of them, so we sent word through people we trusted—like, if you could watch out for a blond in a red coat, we’ll watch out for your folk, that sort of thing.”

  
Marius piped up for the first time since Enjolras had scared him. “And Cosette was in charge of human relations, like going to different villages and seeing who might want to join us, that sort of thing. She’s good with people.”

  
Enjolras sat dumb through it all, absorbing. It was, he hoped, exactly what he would have done in their shoes. Heat washed behind his eyes, gratitude and guilt that they’d looked out for him when he was nothing but a mindless killing machine. “You kept fighting,” he said, as simply as he could. Courf and ‘Ferre grinned, understanding what he couldn’t say. _You didn’t lose hope. You kept the light going when I thought it had burnt out._

  
He cleared his throat. “I want in,” he stated. “But first, I need to know about Cosette.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so tomorrow's segment should provide more insight into what Cosette's been up to and how our other characters fit into this storyline. I'll be updating pretty much every day for the next four-five chapters, then taking a little longer in between. Thanks for reading!


	5. At the Sign of the Prancing Pony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras nodded firmly, still walking back and forth with controlled energy, like a tiger prowling a cage.
> 
> “Send me.” Enjolras spun towards them, eyes blazing. “I can join the group, figure out who R is.” Courfeyrac grimaced.
> 
>  
> 
> “Enj, you’ve been out of the center for a day. It’s not safe for you to go into this blind.” Enjolras flapped a hand dismissively.
> 
>  
> 
> “It’s a cult, they expect people to be disoriented and blind. I’m their perfect target. Aren’t I?” he asked, skewering Combeferre with his eyes. Courfeyrac turned to look at him accusingly, while Marius gaped between them.

Three weeks earlier:

  
The Musain was well-lit for a dim, poorly traveled café-bar, but Cosette still had to squint upon entering, looking for her contact. She noted with an inward grimace the “HVF drink free” sign hanging behind the bar, although the band on her arm carried those same three letters. It helped to look the part, and the costume she wore was hardly a lie. She was part of the Human Volunteer Force, had been a lieutenant in her city before being given this mission. It was just that the force she’d volunteered for had been so much more than the usual ragtag band of scared teens, hardened veterans and genuine killers that most towns could call their own.

  
Her eyes adjusted to the half-gloom and she nodded to Musichetta, who womanned the bar. ‘Chetta was one of those people with an innate talent for linking others together, forging bonds and connections. Cosette couldn’t doubt that the same skills that made her an excellent communications person for their mission helped her juggle the hypochondriac/luckless messes that are Joly and Bossuet in their triad. Cosette had seen them on their covert date nights and they were achingly sweet together. She knew that their recent separation had taken a toll, and she hoped they could finish the mission and extract Bossuet soon. Undead _and_ undercover was asking a bit much from the man who'd once super-glued both hands to his glasses _and_ his eyebrows.

  
Musichetta sent a warm smile her way and nodded to a booth in the corner where a shadowy figure in a green hoodie sat. “R,” she mouthed.

Cosette gave a sharp nod and crossed the room, assuming the loose, rolling gait that rocked her hips and drew attention to the holster and a belt full of ammunition she wore like a belly-dancer’s sash. ‘R’ stayed slumped over his full drink, but she saw the gleam of his eyes underneath the mess of dark curls, and was irresistibly reminded of the scene in Lord of the Rings where Strider sits by the fire and watches the Hobbits from afar. Enjolras had loved that movie, though he protested loudly against the unequal gender ratios and the way the dark-skinned orcs and vaguely middle-eastern-looking people were made to be the bad guys. Enjolras would have loved the intrigue of this meeting, their purpose, and as always the thought of her brother brought a lump to her throat and renewed energy to her stride.

  
“Room for one more?” she asked coquettishly when she approached the table. ‘R’ glanced up at her and gestured to the seat across from him, revealing no change in expression. The scars that ravaged the left side of his face from his temple to his lip gave him a permanent sneer. She slid into the booth, slipping a piece of paper from her pocket to slide across from him. To any nosy onlooker, she might have just given him her phone number. To ‘R’, the slip would communicate much more valuable information… if he truly was on their side. And really, Cosette thought, meeting his pinprick eyes, he’d be a fool not to be.

  
R accepted the piece of paper with a brief twitch of his lips that could have been amused or bitter. She had a feeling that there wasn’t much of a difference for him. They sat in silence for a long moment, during which Cosette resisted the urge to fidget. Her own rules of recruitment, after much trial and error, were headed with one simple principle: always allow your target to volunteer what they want before you make the offer.

  
“So this is how you do it?” He said finally, voice raspy like that of a habitual smoker—or like someone who hadn’t consumed liquids in a long time. “Walk up to a rotter, smile, play like you don’t have our blood on your hands?” He pointedly didn’t look at the band on her arm.

  
“I can’t say I’ve never shot in self-defense,” Cosette stated calmly, “but I’ve never gone for the kill. Every undead person I’ve come across has been sent to the center for neurotryptiline treatments. I made sure of that.” She sat carefully relaxed, hands splayed on the table in the age-old symbol of harmlessness. R nodded thoughtfully.

  
“And you believe that we’re better off in buildings like lab rats, waiting for our injections to make us safe and harmless,” he said lightly, toying with the unopened beer bottle.

  
“I believe that the injections that keep you safe and harmless also make it possible for you to rejoin society,” she responded in the same tone. “And that the new trade in Blue Oblivion by your group jeopardizes that possibility.” R’s hand slipped on the bottle, which rolled dangerously close to the edge before Cosette caught it.

  
“You know about that?” he asked, voice tense. She rolled her eyes and set the bottle before him with a soft chink.

  
“You think you’re the first undead person I’ve talked to?” she asked. “The first one with the Prophet, even? How did you think I knew to come ask for an audience with one of the disciples?” He ducked further back in his seat at that, hiding his eyes behind his bangs. “You’re one of the first of them, R. You know what they stood for.”

  
“… for they are as angels that are in heaven,” he muttered, almost sing-song in his intonations. He snorted. “Pretty words. Like yours are pretty. Possible to rejoin society,” he mimicked.

  
“Then I can talk in ugly words,” she offered. “Like the story about cult members who took blue oblivion on public transport last week and killed fourteen people before they were shot down. Like how two days after that, scared townspeople from three different cities dragged innocent undead from their homes and shot them, just so they could feel safer on the trains.” She leaned forward. “I’m not asking you to join us. All we need is the information so we can put a stop to this. Or there will be more killings, more genocide.”

  
R sat in silence before reaching out to take the bottle again, pulling it to his lips in a habitual movement before setting it back down, un-tasted. He wet his lips. “I don’t have the information you’re looking for.”

  
“But?” Cosette prompted.

  
“But I might be able to get to someone who does. Maybe.” He eyed the way Cosette slumped backward in relief. “You’re pretty invested for a live one.”

  
“Is that your way of asking who I’m in this for?” She raised an eyebrow.

  
“Eh, boyfriend most likely.” He smirked. “Maybe girlfriend, I’m not one to judge. If you’re planning to pull a Romeo and Juliet, it helps if one’s already dead.”

  
Wordlessly, she took her wallet from her holster and pulled out the photo of Enjolras from his senior Speech and Debate competition. She’d looked it over often enough to memorize the way his eyes sparked from the image, the way he’d been caught mid-rant, high color in his cheeks. R whistled appreciatively.

  
“So Apollo’s your boyfriend? True star-crossed love,” he said, handing the photo back. Cosette snorted.

  
“Yeah, not so much. True star-crossed half-brother, more like.” She set the picture back in her wallet, placing it safely in her pocket. “And he’s a couple weeks away from leaving the lab and re-entering society, so yes, I have a vested interest in trying to make it safe for him to walk down the street.” Without waiting for an answer, she stood up and reached out a hand to shake.

  
“Send an email to that address if you can get into contact with your person,” she said briskly. “Or if you need to meet for any other reason. Phone only for emergencies.” With a brisk nod, she walked back to Musichetta to say goodnight.

  
Sitting alone in his booth with a beer he couldn’t drink and a paper of contact information, R smiled bitterly. “Would that we all had families like yours, Apollo,” he murmured.

Present day:

 _“Cosette, pick up, it’s R. I’ve found the supplier.”_ With a click, Marius stopped the recorded message and dropped the phone back into his lap. “We found the phone in her hotel room last week, along with all her luggage. No signs of a struggle.” He shook his head.

  
“Who’s R? What supplier?” Enjolras asked, nearly vibrating in his seat. Courf and 'Ferre looked at each other, then at him, and sighed.

  
“You just got back into the world, you probably haven’t heard about Blue Oblivion,” 'Ferre stated. “It’s a drug that counteracts neurotryptiline, puts you back into rabid state for a brief period.” Enjolras gaped at him.

  
“Why would anyone make that?”

  
“Because there’s a market for it. Mostly cults of the undead—people who think that the risen are more evolved, superior to humans.” Courfeyrac flapped a hand to indicate how crazy this was. “Evolution doesn’t make humans superior to dolphins, it doesn’t make risen superior to humans.”

  
“Wait, risen? The undead?” Enjolras wasn’t quite sure why they were using those words. “Aren’t you supposed to say PDS sufferers?”

  
“You can, but that’s way PC,” Marius piped up. “It’s like saying homosexuals instead of queer or gay.” At Courfeyrac’s raised eyebrow, he flushed. “What? I’m from California.”

  
Enjolras cut them off before they could get any further off-topic. “Is Cosette in trouble with the supplier then? She was trying to find them?”

  
Ferre steepled his hands in thought. “She was trying to cut off the chain of supply, yes. Started with an informant at one of the major undead groups whom sources say isn’t completely affiliated anymore. Her cell only logs that one call from R, though, so whether he was trying to help her or lured her into a trap is anyone’s guess.”

  
Enjolras burst out of his seat and began pacing. “So what’s your plan to find her? Find R and shake him down?”

  
“We sent Feuilly—you met him, the co-chair from the Black Student Union? —to where Cosette was last seen, to find out if he could retrace her tracks. But she didn’t leave much of a trail,” Courfeyrac said apologetically. “And it’s not like we can just reestablish contact with R if he really is the person who set the trap. We were meeting today to plan. Mostly trying to figure out how to meet him, the guy barely leaves his commune.”

Enjolras nodded firmly, still walking back and forth with controlled energy, like a tiger prowling a cage.  
“Send me.” Enjolras spun towards them, eyes blazing. “I can join the group, figure out who R is.” Courfeyrac grimaced.

  
“Enj, you’ve been out of the center for a day. It’s not safe for you to go into this blind.” Enjolras flapped a hand dismissively.

  
“It’s a cult, they expect people to be disoriented and blind. I’m their perfect target. Aren’t I?” he asked, skewering Combeferre with his eyes. Courfeyrac turned to look at him accusingly, while Marius gaped between them.

  
“Did you plan this so he’d volunteer?” Courf asked exasperatedly. Ferre raised an eyebrow at him.

  
“No, but you can’t deny he has a point. If he hadn’t volunteered, Marius would have tried to, and the pinprick lenses aren’t quite up to muster yet,” he responded coolly. Turning to Enjolras, he let his voice grow a little warmer. “You know they’ll expect you to hate the living, right?”

  
“I can handle it,” Enjolras said confidently. “I don’t like many people besides you guys anyway.”

  
Courfeyrac sighed exhaustively. "UGH, fine. But Enj, you need to check in with us. Every day! Just text, email, SOMETHING to let us know you're still ali-- okay."

  
Enjolras snorted. "Sure, I'll ask to borrow their homing pigeons. Same goes for you guys, though, if you find out anything about Cosette--"

  
"You'll be the first to know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry about the chapter title, I really like the Fellowship movie.
> 
> Next chapter we meet the members of the commune! And E finally meets R ^_^ Stay tuned!


	6. Revolution Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire recognized the symptoms first. “Shit, he’s having a flashback. Help me sit him up.” Between the two of them, they got Enjolras off the floor and propped against the wall, trying to open his airways against those horrible wheezes. Grantaire kept a hold of Enjolras’s wrists, circling them gently with one hand in case the other man decided to hit out blindly. The last time he’d seen someone flashback, he’d almost gotten a broken jaw for his efforts.
> 
>  
> 
> Jehan sat down carefully by Enjolras’s other side, careful not to touch him. They murmured a steady stream of soothing into Enjolras’s ear, to little effect. Grantaire could have told them that sound rarely registered when caught in a memory.
> 
>  
> 
> Enjolras’s lips moved, barely, between the wheezes. It seemed like he was trying to say something to whatever or whomever he was seeing. He pulled his arms to his chest, clutched them tightly. Grantaire focused on those desperate, silent lips, trying to read what he was saying. Try as he might, the only word he could make out was, “Run!”

Grantaire rubbed his eyes and moaned, mostly out of habit. For all that sheep’s brains had an effect like alcohol on the undead brain, they didn’t dehydrate, and therefore were a vice without a hangover. Still, he could swear that the sunlight always felt a little sharper in the mornings after their parties.

  
An answering moan came from under the covers next to him and he stilled. There was a long braid of ginger hair peeking out from under the blankets, but that was the only clue he needed to figure out the identity of his bedmate. As he stretched out a hand, the mass of blankets flipped over and revealed a bright-eyed, half-nude Jehan.

  
“You snore in your sleep,” they complained, wrinkling their nose. Grantaire couldn’t help his affectionate smile. He'd barely believed it when Jehan had showed up that week-- after all these years he never would have dreamed his old friend from rehab would turn up again. After four years apart, their friendship had picked up again like they'd never been separated.

  
“Well, you steal the blankets, so we’re about even,” he shot back, leaning forward to yank the top cover away. Jehan let it go without a fuss, rising from the mattress to stretch and locate their shirt from where they’d tossed it the night before. This was easier said than done, given that Grantaire’s floor on a good day was a quagmire of clothing, pencils, papers and painting supplies .

  
“Check behind the chair,” Grantaire said helpfully, leaning on one elbow. Jehan bent to look and straightened up with a cry of success. They pulled it on, covering pale skin marked with pre-mortem bruises Grantaire knew better than to ask about. For one thing, Jehan had seen the expert stitches holding together the skin along his spine and kept strict silence.

  
Jehan stepped carefully over more hazardous piles of things on the floor to bounce back onto the bed and drop a cheerful kiss on Grantaire’s cheek. “Thanks for the snuggles!” they chirped, then skipped out of the room, presumably to bestow morning cheer on the rest of the commune.

Grantaire dragged his hand through his hair with a contented sigh and began his own, decidedly less successful search for an outfit, finally settling on a paint-streaked sweater and a pair of jeans that were more rip than fabric. Checking carefully that no one was around, he fished under the bed for a loose floorboard, then checked under that for his burner cellphone. There were no new calls registered, no messages that could tell him where the hell his contact had fucked off to after he'd passed her the info. Cosette had seemed so sharp and determined when they’d first met, committed in a way people rarely were these days. That she didn’t answer meant that she, or her organization, were probably unable to muster resources to deal with the Blue Oblivion problem. Or that she was in trouble.

  
With a frown, he shoved the phone into the pocket of his jeans—it had only been a week and change, she could still call back—and went to join morning meeting in the communal lounge.

  
The undead didn’t do regular mealtimes, a consequence of lacking a functional digestive system. Still, morning meetings acted as a communal draw, more necessary than Sunday mass. Neurotryptiline was dosed in morning meetings, and no one wanted to miss their cure. Truthfully, Grantaire wasn’t sure that the compound they received was the same neurotryptiline the government doctors cooked up in their whitewashed facilities, but it kept the brain firing and didn’t make black gunk ooze from their mouths like the first experimental mixes had done, so he counted it a success.

  
Today was a Monday, so the liaison from Montparnasse's chapter would be visiting. Grantaire liked Bossuet a lot better than the other assholes who'd preceded him. It was too bad he couldn't just join this chapter like Jehan had, but Grantaire supposed he must have a good reason for subjecting himself to Montparnasse and his sniggering chuckleheaded friends.

  
New members were introduced in morning meetings, too, which meant lots of hugging and jubilation to be doled out. Even as a self-proclaimed cynic, Grantaire couldn’t help but feel a swelling of hope for each newcomer who raised hopeful eyes to the group. His introduction to the commune had been the first hug he’d received in years, the first friendly touch after weeks of ostracization and harassment by HVF-type assholes. For people like his friend Jehan, who thrived on physicality and affection, morning meeting was like catnip. Sure enough, he heard the long-haired poet’s excited squeals long before he entered the room. It sounded like a name, but that name was nearly incomprehensible. Who called themselves “Enjolras,” anyway?

  
When he cleared the door and saw the cause for excitement leaning forward to hug Jehan with a timid smile, he was struck dumb. His skin was the bone-pale shade of someone who had been fair even in life, and his eyes were a shade of blue that had to be artificial, but the hair, the balance of those delicate, genderless features was the same. It was Cosette’s brother, Apollo. What the hell was he doing here?

  
Long moments passed before Jehan consented to release Enjolras from their hug. Even then, they kept their hands wrapped around their companion’s arms, eyes devouring his face.

  
“Have you heard from Gavroche? Or Bahorel or Joly? How was it with your friends? Do they know you’re here? Oh, Enjolras, it’s so good to see you!” Bouncing gently on the balls of their feet, Jehan swept in for another hug and oh. If Enjolras half-smiling had been stunning, the genuine curl of his lips, the soft way he relaxed into Jehan’s arms with a barely audible chuckle, the motes of light dancing around the two slight figures, everything in that moment was brilliant in the original, light-bringing sense of the word. If Grantaire could have frozen time, he would have stopped them a second before they broke apart, walked all around to set up his easel and painted them. He'd call it something like _Apollo Embracing the Muse_. As it was, he stood gaping in the doorway for long enough that Bossuet came over to nudge him in the side and nearly tripped over the carpet.

  
“Steady on, mate,” he advised, helping the luckless man to regain his feet. Bossuet took the near miss with the same nonchalant cheer he greeted all misfortunes and lounged back on the wall as Enjolras was reclaimed from Jehan and led to hug all members.

  
“He’s a bit different, huh?” Bossuet asked musingly. Grantaire shot him a glance, but stepped forward to take his turn in the love-fest without answering. He could swear he felt his heart pounding against his ribs when Enjolras’s eyes met his and the man’s arms opened like a benediction, like acceptance. Most new recruits came cowering, stunned into tears by the presence of other undead who understood them, who welcomed them. They were shaken within themselves, drowning sailors looking for a ship to rescue them. Enjolras was a siren, a sea god, a lighthouse in his own right. Grantaire couldn’t imagine him unmoored.

  
They embraced, perfunctorily intimate. Grantaire closed his eyes against the soft brush of Enjolras’s hair, tightened his arms enough that even their numb skin could feel the connection. He stepped back and grinned into the face of the sun.

  
“Welcome to the commune! I’m Grantaire, the Twelfth Disciple. You can just call me R—“ here Enjolras’s eyes snapped to his own, with a ferocity that seemed to come out of nowhere. “It’s a pun…” he ventured.

  
“R… Good to meet you,” Enjolras answered. “I’m—“

  
“Enjolras, I heard. Want some sheep’s brains?” Grantaire interrupted, gesturing somewhat manically to the other room, with their only fridge. Jehan laughed and someone else smacked their forehead behind him. The room erupted in fond censure, “Of course Grantaire would—“ “It’s his first day!” “Let the man speak!” Grantaire laughed along with them and rubbed a hand through his hair, raising his eyes to Enjolras’s.

  
The other man was obviously (adorably!) trying to mask his horrified confusion. “Sheep’s… brains?” he repeated slowly. Grantaire licked his lips.

  
“They’re good for relaxing, for a buzz,” he offered. “Not that you need to, it’s not like communion here!” Enjolras wrinkled his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side, causing his braided hair to fall over one shoulder. Grantaire might have actually whimpered.  
Jehan, thank fuck, stepped forward to save him from himself.

“Grantaire can get a little ahead of himself with the parties,” they said diplomatically, laying an affectionate hand on Grantaire’s cheek in passing. “But yeah, come on into the sitting room and we can all lounge around and learn about your life!”

  
Enjolras quirked a smile on the last word like, “yeah, right” but followed Jehan out of the room. Grantaire wasn’t too proud to admit to himself that he liked watching Enjolras walk away almost as much as he liked his face. Bossuet lagged behind the others to laugh at him.

  
The commune wasn’t the best-kept building in the world. They had claimed the fourth floor of an old office-building abandoned during the Rising, and there was a room somewhere full of all the desks and file cabinets and shit they had to shove out of the way to make their space a home. Still, although everyone’s personal rooms were largely furniture-bare spaces with mattresses and eclectic blankets, the sitting room was where they'd splurged. Grantaire and the first members of the group had spent a couple days secretly combing the building and surrounding areas for all of the creature comforts they could scavenge—couches, lampshades, lights, even a giant teddy-bear left over from some fair or other. Enjolras took it all in for a moment as the rest took the seats they found most comfortable—Jehan reclined in the arms of the nearly couch-sized teddy-bear while the other members piled themselves onto the couches and Bossuet more or less fell into the chair nearest the door. After that moment of indecision, Enjolras simple slid into place on the floor next to Jehan, regal as a king ascending to his throne.

  
Grantaire, for his part, crowbarred his way onto his favorite part of the squashy couch on Jehan's other side and curled up to listen to the interrogation. Now that Enjolras had been hugged and welcomed, he was pretty much free bait for the curiosity of the commune. Dave, one of the more precious members, actually raised a hand for his question like a student for a teacher. Enjolras raised an eyebrow at him and the let’s-learn-everything-about-our-new-member session begins.

  
“How did you hear about us?” Dave asked, pulling his hand down to sit on it. He used to chew on his nails as a kid, and certain members had taken it upon themselves to point out that if he tried that now, they would literally never grow back.

  
Enjolras jerked a thumb in Jehan’s direction, looking a little bemused. He answered the standard questions fired at him without a change in that expression. Yes, he had been released from the center only a week ago. Yes, he was from a suburban area. His favorite color was red.

  
“Are you a virgin?” Grantaire tossed out, perversely hoping to regain the devastating focus of Enjolras’s eyes. To his surprise, the man simply turned away and acted like he hadn’t heard, looking to another member who wanted to ask about his family. Jehan shot Grantaire an exasperated look, but the devil that had obviously possessed his brain wouldn’t let up.

  
“Hey, Apollo, I asked you a question,” he said, pitching his voice to carry. “Did you ever do it?” Jehan rolled their eyes. Enjolras did him one better.

  
Turning his head to skewer Grantaire with those blue eyes, he curled his lip. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

  
Grantaire grinned. “Oh, it’s very relevant. Not as relevant as, say, how you died, but much more interesting.”

  
“And why would that be?” The chill in Enjolras’s voice could have raised goosebumps on living flesh. Grantaire could almost feel the delightful shiver. He shrugged carelessly.

  
“Because, En-jol-ras,” he drew out the name in a drawl, “if you haven’t used _it_ yet, you never will.” On 'it,' he dropped his eyes daringly to the delectable fold of Enjolras’s lap. Dave hissed in a breath beside him, unconsciously bringing a hand up to his mouth. Without tearing his eyes from Enjolras's glare, Grantaire smacked his hand down.

  
Jehan glared reprovingly at Grantaire and turned to Enjolras, opening their mouth to apologize for their uncouth friend. They needn’t have bothered. Enjolras dropped his eyes from Grantaire’s in a way that suggested not surrender but disdain. Addressing the room at large, he said, “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about orgies.”

  
Grantaire nearly choked. Bossuet did choke on a laugh and had to be pounded on the back before he could breathe in more than a wheeze. Jehan smacked Enjolras’s arm lightly, overcome with peals of laughter. Catching Grantaire’s eye, they mouthed, “Enjolras: 1, R: 0”, accompanied with finger-scores on each hand.

  
Somewhat chastened, Grantaire sat back and let the flow of questions continue uninterrupted. Dave and Bossuet had it well in hand, having joined early. They knew when to sit back and let the newer members break the ice with fluff questions and when to step forward for the important questions. Grantaire observed the unflinching way Enjolras answered all, and found further support for Bossuet’s conclusion.

  
Enjolras was different. Evasive, in ways he had no need to be. He said he died of injuries after participating in a protest, but didn’t elaborate what he was protesting. He readily answered that his family had disowned him, but didn’t accompany that statement with any of the usual sob story—his mother had died in the Rising, his grandmother had Risen and was killed, his brother tried to shoot him and hit the dog (this last had actually happened to, you guessed it, Bossuet). Just a simple, “my parents told me not to come home,” and he turned to answer the next question.

  
Just when R was willing to declare Enjolras a beautiful sociopath, Jehan piped up with an unexpected addition. “What about those friends you were going to stay with?”

  
Enjolras’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, ‘Ferre and Courf… I stayed with them for a bit, but,” he grimaced, “they were part of the HVF. Courf had trouble with not, you know, attacking me for a bit.” He looked sad for the first time since he’d arrived, wistful. Jehan, face full of sympathy, patted his knee consolingly. Enjolras shrugged. “They didn’t really want me to come, but I didn’t want to force them to take care of me, you know? It wasn’t fair to them.” Grantaire narrowed his eyes, leaning forward to see Enjolras’s face better. He wanted to be sure to catch the reaction to his next question.

  
“And you didn’t have anyone else to go to? No brothers or sisters?”

  
The words hung in the air between them, weighting the silence. Enjolras favored him with the same burning, considering look he’d given on their first exchange, like St. Peter judging whether to open the gate, or Anubis weighing a man’s heart against a feather.

  
“I came here,” he said slowly, “to find family.”

  
Jehan fairly launched themself out of the teddy bear’s embrace to hug Enjolras and coo over him. Dave removed his hands from under him to start up the clapping. Observing the scene, Grantaire leaned back and kept his silence. He was certain Enjolras hadn’t lied, but equally certain that he was using the truth as a cover. One thing was for sure; he was definitely Cosette’s brother. The phone, un-rung, sat in Grantaire’s pocket like a stone used to weight a corpse in a river.

 -----------

It took about a week for Enjolras to fully settle in. He’d been installed in an empty room next to Jehan’s, which he subsequently “decorated” with stacks of newspapers and books he’d gotten from somewhere. Bossuet was banned from Enjolras’s room on no uncertain terms after he opened the door too quickly and sent the papers fluttering all over Enjolras’s mattress. Grantaire was somewhat glad it had been Bossuet and not him; after all, Bossuet got to leave town the day after. Grantaire was stuck. Over the course of that week, this simply became one of the established facts of the commune—Dave wasn’t allowed to bite his nails, Jehan cuddled people into submission when high on sheep’s brains, Enjolras was determined to make his room into a fire hazard. And Grantaire was unfairly hung up on Cosette's unfairly attractive brother.

  
Grantaire took it upon himself to peek his head into Enjolras’s room at least once a day and say hello. The first day, Enjolras was wary, rolled his eyes when Grantaire called him “Apollo,” and pursed his lips when asked what all the clutter in his room was for. The second day, he was out on a walk with Jehan when Grantaire roused from his doze. The Disciple wandered barefoot around the commune floor a couple times, dropping in on other members who welcomed him with smiles. No one said an unkind word to him or narrowed brilliant blue lenses in his direction. After a couple hours, he took some sheep’s brains back into his room to get properly drunk and fiddled with his paints until he passed out.

  
The third day, he noted with glee that Enjolras’s door was cracked open, the light on. With intentional cheer, he rapped on the frame and burst in, crying, “Good morni—"

  
Enjolras shot up from his nest of blankets and blinked up at him blearily, pinprick eyes unfocused with sleep. The sheets slid off his bare shoulders and puddled around his lap, prompting Grantaire to wonder somewhat hysterically if the man wore anything to bed. He dragged his eyes up from the tantalizing mystery and frowned, staring at Enjolras’s chest, the two deep wounds that marred his flesh. He could see sunlight through them, it seemed, a faint glow that surrounded the marred skin and black stitches over Enjolras’s sternum and heart. They could have been wounds from the Rising, but he didn’t think so. No one shot a rotter twice in the chest without going for the head shot.

  
Stepping carefully forward over the nearest stack of books, he crouched next to the mattress, raising a gentle hand. Somehow, Enjolras watched the approach with nothing more than a lazy blink, leaning back on his hands.

  
“Who shot you?” Grantaire murmured, brushing a finger against the closest wound. Enjolras flinched back, belatedly grabbing the sheet to cover himself. Grantaire pulled back to give him space, raising both hands to show he wouldn’t try to touch again.

  
“It was… what are you doing in my room?” Enjolras shot back, groping behind himself one-handedly for a shirt. He pulled on the first one he encountered, which happened to be one of Jehan’s many badly-knitted excess sweaters. Grantaire allowed himself a smile at that.

  
“Came to say good morning,” he replied, voice pitched to soothe. “Enjolras. Who shot you?” His hands itched with the urge to brush tangled curls out of Enjolras’s eyes, physically turn the man’s face to meet his eyes, bared of their blue shields.

  
“Police.” Enjolras said simply, hands fisted in his bed covers. Abruptly, he stood up and snatched a pair of jeans from the corner, pulling them on over—Grantaire nearly swallowed his tongue—crimson red boxers. Of course he had to choose the color that contrasted most perfectly with his flawless skin.

  
“Are you done invading my privacy?” Enjolras asked testily, picking his way to the corner with bare feet. He snatched up a small white contact case and turned to leave the room, resolutely not looking at Grantaire. Unfortunately for him, Grantaire had never been deterred by the “ignore him and he’ll go away” approach. Recovering his equanimity, he bounded up and crossed to the door, blocking Enjolras’s way.

  
“Why do you wear the lenses?” he asked, widening his own pinprick eyes. “No one here cares.” Enjolras halted before him, still refusing to meet his eyes.

  
“If no one cares, why are you asking?” he snapped, crossing his arms. Grantaire leaned forward slightly, testing how close he could get before Enjolras backed up or tried to slap him. Enjolras eyed him narrowly as he neared, standing his ground with sheer force of will.

  
“Because,” Grantaire breathed, “I like your eyes.” He smirked as his target finally raised his head to stare at him in confusion and leaned back, opening the way with a courteous gesture of his hand.

  
Enjolras rolled his eyes and stepped out of the threshold, striding towards the bathroom. Grantaire leaned against the wall and watched him go, letting out a surreptitious sigh. Like a focal point in a painting, a tiny patch of crimson red drew the eyes to the swaying line on Enjolras’s lower back where sweater didn’t quite meet jeans. Grantaire stifled a giggle as his eyes zeroed in on that perfect red spot. _Oh, to be a pair of boxers on that ass_ —or however that quote went.

  
Jehan’s room was the closest to the communal bathroom, so it really shouldn’t have surprised him when the poet bounded out of their door to greet the world and collided directly with Enjolras. In an instant, both crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and startled noises. Jehan, who’d managed to land mostly on top, recovered quickly.

  
“Oh, Enj! I’m sorry!” they cried, trying to lever themself up. Enjolras grunted as their hand landed on one of the bullet wounds, giving a full-body flinch that unbalanced Jehan into sitting down hard on the other’s knees. Grantaire figuratively picked his jaw up off the floor and went to the rescue, catching Jehan under the arms to pull them clear.

  
“Thanks, R!” they chirped, patting the helping hands gratefully. “Enj? Can you stand?” They peered down at Enjolras, still laying prone with one hand over his chest. His breath came in wheezes and his eyes were unfocused, skittering back and forth as if caught in open-eyed REM.

  
Grantaire recognized the symptoms first. “Shit, he’s having a flashback. Help me sit him up.” Between the two of them, they got Enjolras off the floor and propped against the wall, trying to open his airways against those horrible wheezes. Grantaire kept a hold of Enjolras’s wrists, circling them gently in one hand in case the other man decided to hit out blindly. The last time he’d seen someone flashback, he’d almost gotten a broken jaw for his efforts.

  
Jehan sat down carefully by Enjolras’s other side, careful not to touch him. They murmured a steady stream of soothing into Enjolras’s ear, to little effect. Grantaire could have told them that sound rarely registered when caught in a memory.

  
Enjolras’s lips moved, barely, between the wheezes. It seemed like he was trying to say something to whatever or whomever he was seeing. He pulled his arms to his chest, clutched them tightly. Grantaire focused on those desperate, silent lips, trying to read what he was saying. Try as he might, the only word he could make out was, “Run!”

  
A minute passed and Enjolras didn’t surface. If anything, he seemed more agitated, eyes darting more rapidly. His hands clutched spasmodically, pulling the sweater hopelessly out of shape. Grantaire gave up holding his arms and snaked his hands around Enjolras’s shivering frame, cupping the other man’s neck gently. He could almost feel the harsh rush of wind through his Apollo’s throat like a pulse that no longer beat. Carefully, he brushed his fingers back under that cloud of soft golden hair and found the depression between Enjolras’s vertebrae where repeated neurotryptiline doses had left permanent post-mortem wounds.

  
“Sorry, Apollo,” he murmured, before digging his fingers into that spot.

  
Enjolras keened like he was being stabbed, back arching away from the wall. Jehan laid a hand against his straining chest, raising an eyebrow at Grantaire in a wtf-did-you-do expression.

  
“Nnngh… wha?” Enjolras moaned, curling in on himself. Grantaire gave a sigh of relief and brushed the bangs out of Enjolras’s face before he could think better of it.

  
“You had a flashback. Do you remember where you are?”

  
“Where’s ‘Ferre? Did he get out okay?” Enjolras asked, frantic. He struggled to get up, brushing aside Grantaire’s hands like flies. “They have to get out of here! They’ll be hurt!”

  
Jehan made a broken sound. Grantaire ignored that, ignored everything but the way Enjolras was blinking quickly and blindly, starting to struggle against their gentle hold. He set his hand firmly on the cuff of Enjolras’s sweater, fingers pressing against the neurotryptiline site, that one point of flesh that could still feel as intimately as living skin.

  
“Enjolras, you’re not there. You’re here, with us. Remember?”

  
“NO, you have to get ‘Ferre, tell him it’s going wrong! I don’t know where Courf went! Where’s ‘Ferre, he has to run!” Enjolras was crying now and it was the worst thing Grantaire had ever seen, those fiery tears coursing down marble skin. Jehan had given up trying not to cry and pressed their face against Enjolras’s shoulder, whispering something he couldn't hear.

  
“He’s safe. He’s safe, Enjolras. It’s okay.” Grantaire said it until Enjolras stopped crying, until he could move his hand from where it cupped his neck to wrap around the man’s trembling shoulders. Something like hatred curdled in his chest at the thought of these two men who didn’t deserve Enjolras’s tears, who left him here alone in his loneliness and confusion. He ran his hands up and down Enjolras's back, pressing gently at the exit wounds as if his touch could soothe them.

  
“’M okay.” Enjolras’s voice was muffled in Grantaire’s shoulder, and the artist realized with a start that he had wrapped him completely in his arms, hands running down his back and stroking his hair. Where the hell was Jehan and how had they allowed this to happen? He started to release his hold but Enjolras simply sighed and slumped forward a little more, like Grantaire was the only thing holding him up. There was a warm patch on his thin t-shirt that might have been tears or might simply be the heat of Enjolras’s breath.

  
“So….” He didn’t want to say anything to ruin this, whatever it is. “What happened?”

  
Enjolras pressed his forehead against Grantaire’s clavicle like an ostrich reaching blindly for sand. “We were at a protest for transgender rights. There had been a murder downtown and the police weren’t investigating it fully because the victim was homeless, broke…” he laughed bitterly. “So we organized a march on the town hall. And…” Grantaire’s hands found their way back to his hair, wordless encouragement.

  
“God, R, they had guns. Not rubber bullets, actual ones. People were screaming… there was this old man walking by who had nothing to do with it and two policemen walked up to him and aimed… So I had Courf take him across the street and I walked up to them and said, ‘Hey, assholes!’” Grantaire couldn’t help but chuckle, imagining Enjolras walking brazen and beautiful in front of the police, just so that an old man could cross the street in peace.

  
“They laughed and said I should go away, but…” Enjolras’s shoulders slid in what could have been a shrug or a breathless laugh. “I got them mad. It all happened so fast, I didn’t know what set them off… I saw Courf try to run over but Feuilly held him back, thank god. Told them to run, but I couldn’t see ‘Ferre, it just hurt so much.”

  
Grantaire gave in to the urge to press a gentle kiss against the top of Enjolras’s head. “It’s okay, Apollo, you did good. You saved them,” he murmured.

  
With a jerk, Enjolras was free and halfway across the hall before Grantaire could blink. Jehan came up beside him as he watched the blond stalk away, open-mouthed.

  
“…Did I say something?” He asked helplessly.

  
Jehan sighed.

 

\--------

Cosette opened her eyes to the same grey cement she’d seen every day for the past weeks. The slit of a window was barely wide enough to let in a breath of fresh air, let alone sunlight. Her eyes were adjusted to the gloom by now, the perpetual dim she lived in between meal times and bathroom breaks. Pillowing her head in her arms, she sighed. If this weren’t exactly where she needed to be to find out about the Blue Oblivion suppliers, she would have taken her chances and broken out days ago.

Reaching back into the sweaty tangled mass of hair that had been a perfect french braid, she checked that her set of special bobby pins was still there. They’d gotten her knives and ammo the first night, when she was disoriented and drugged, but no one ever remembered to check the hair of their captives. Cosette reluctantly pulled her hand from her hair and wiped it on the slightly grimy fabric of her jeans. She hadn’t felt this gross since the three-week long backpacking trip she’d dragged Enjolras on during their last summer before college.

Light footsteps neared the door. Cosette rolled over to face it, not bothering to sit up. She had nothing to prove to Eponine, and little to fear from her. One captive can always recognize another.

“Room service, mademoiselle,” the whippet-thin woman announced sarcastically, balancing a tray as she hip-checked the door open. Cosette hummed in acknowledgement, stretching with a luxurious yawn.

“Do give my compliments to the chef, ‘Ponine,” she responded, eyeing the wonder-bread sandwich and wizened apple. Accepting the tray, she bit into the sandwich delicately, chewing every mouthful slowly. The apple she saved to battle the cloying stickiness of the peanut butter. Eponine lounged back against the door, eyes vacantly focused on the ceiling.

“Any chance I could get a glass of water?” Cosette asked.

“Nothing breakable allowed,” Eponine intoned, the words rasping from her throat. “But you can drink from the sink when I take you to the shitter.”

“So… no shower today, either?”

Eponine snorted.

“Not unless you want me in the room to guard you.” Cosette frowned, considering.

“In the stall or in the room?”

“Jesus, princess, it’s not like I’d take a peek,” Eponine huffed, husky voice without rancor. Cosette shrugged, starting on her apple.

“Just wondering how much I have to work with here. Could I borrow some shampoo? A razor? Promise I won’t try and nick you to death.”

Eponine cracked a smile, stretching her thin face into something almost beautiful. Cosette couldn’t help but smile back at her.

“You know the deal. Say the names of who told you, who’s looking for you, how much they can pay, and then you get upgraded to the presidential suite,” Eponine stated, looking away. The humor vanished from her face like a doused candle. Cosette set her apple core against the tray and placed both on the floor by her cot, rolling onto her back.

“Yeah, the suite for people who’ve outlived all usefulness,” she muttered.

“In't that what a president is?” Eponine murmured back, crouching near the bed to collect the tray. “So don’t push your luck.”

Cosette raised her hand over her mouth and stretched like she was trying to cover a yawn. “They’ll come. You could come with us,” she whispered under its cover.

Eponine barely glanced her way. “Not without my brother.”

She straightened with the tray, left the room without glancing back. Cosette listened to the quiet _snickt_ of the locking door and the shuffle of Eponine’s departure. She lay back and stared at the grey ceiling, resolutely not looking at the surveillance camera in the corner of the room. It never did to let the prey know they were being watched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Enjolras settles in at the commune and Cosette makes friends with her guard-- probably gonna wrap up the plot in another four chapters or so, stay tuned!


	7. On Her Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eponine had gone to war with the same silent, preternatural wariness that made her an exceptional waitress and invisible human being. She’d heard the whispers of other groups trying to capture without killing and when she could, she sent some their way, where they had a chance to be treated well. Somewhere walking on this earth were the corpses of her little brothers, and she kept an eye on the small, shambling figures who were somehow so much more wrong than the adult rotters.
> 
>  
> 
> She sat in the corner as the scientists cut with their knives and ran their tests and she watched with eyes barely more alive than that of their subjects. When the government announced that it had found a cure, she participated willingly in the runs to steal the formula and produce their own, and then she witnessed the miracle of the dead coming back to themselves.

Eponine backed away from the door, balancing the tray with the unconscious ease of someone used to serving. Waitress, bartender, barista, if it had to do with fetching, carrying and food, she had it in her resume. Any other girl in her situation might have taken the transition from child to woman hard, might have floundered in the sudden coldness of the world once she was no longer cute and small and manageable. Eponine, through chance or skill, had always had eyes that saw darkness coming and a body built for flinching from its path. As a Thenardier, this made her canny, quiet and easy to overlook, a wren in a family of magpies.

  
At 12, ‘Ponine had cut her sausage ringlets short and begun to drink strong coffee to yellow her teeth, sour her breath, stop her growth. The men who came to drink with her father had eyes deep enough to be sucked into, they laughed at her mother’s blowsy drunkenness and tried to tempt her and her sister with candies and stories. She saw the darkness in them and twisted away free, slipping from their words with blank-faced stares, wrapping her arrow-straight body to keep it from their gaze. She cut little Azelma’s hair, framing it like a game as she snipped the delicate curls ragged and short, and endured the punishment for her “petty foolishness” with whimpers and tears. Little by little she passed down the warnings, the secret ways of being smaller than others, to let them stomp by and scurry in their wake.

  
When she was 15, her parents pulled her from school to start “earning yer keep, m’girl,” and she went without a word, leaving her bag with its tattered books and half-filled notebooks to Azelma and the boys. She wasn’t the only one in her year to simply stop coming, but she must have been the one who went with the least fanfare—no teenage pregnancy, no drug habit or stint in juvie, Eponine simply disappeared as quietly as she had slunk into class for the past eleven years. The teachers, who had long given up on calling on the girl, shrugged their shoulders and went on with their classes, reaching for the students who were able to reach back.

  
Eponine had gone into the serving industry in aid of her family, or at least that was what she allowed her father to think. Most restaurants had seen her thin form waiting in the back alley for whatever scraps, over-salted beef or half-eaten salads they could provide. Many were willing to give the girl a try when she came in her one good shirt, threadbare resume clasped to her chest. She worked in the same way she lived, quietly, efficiently, with one eye to the door and the other to the customer. Sometimes the other workers made fun of her behind her back and she moved through the floor serenely, finished her week and gave notice. These restaurants always had strings of bad luck after she left them, petty theft and vandals that seemed to duck the security cameras as if they knew exactly where they were.

Other places, with kind staff who sent her home with the day’s excess bread and let her take her break in the kitchen with a warm mug of strong coffee, were left unscathed when she slipped her way out of her uniform and out the door for the last time. Her life might have gone on this way, in the margins, if the Rising hadn’t come and fucked everything up.

  
Strange, to think how the loss of life had gone almost unnoticed until it was unnaturally returned. Of Eponine’s four younger siblings, only Azelma had survived long enough to see the Rising. Their two youngest brothers had died sometime after they were ransomed away to a woman suing for child support, after her own boys passed away—Eponine had wrapped their scarves around their necks and watched the cloth become a noose the woman pulled them by—and then there had been three. The silent one, the protected one, and Gavroche, who took in the danger and deception of his world with a bright, buck-toothed grin.

  
He’d played look-out for some of the local gangs, cheekily swapping the hats he wore to identify their colors when the mood suited him. One day they found him laying still on the street, features frozen in his crooked smile, and Eponine had stolen enough money from their parents to get him a headstone in the local church’s graveyard. His coffin was barely four feet long.

  
So it had been her and Azelma when the dead began to rise and all social boundaries temporarily converged, making every living person an ally. The Thenardier’s being who they were, her parents had immediately hatched a way to profit, working with some of the less scrupulous scientists who wanted a cure. Eponine had gone to war with the same silent, preternatural wariness that made her an exceptional waitress and invisible human being. She’d heard the whispers of other groups trying to capture without killing and when she could, she sent some their way, where they had a chance to be treated well. Somewhere walking on this earth were the corpses of her little brothers, and she kept an eye on the small, shambling figures who were somehow so much more wrong than the adult rotters.

  
She sat in the corner as the scientists cut with their knives and ran their tests and she watched with eyes barely more alive than that of their subjects. When the government announced that it had found a cure, she participated willingly in the runs to steal the formula and produce their own, and then she witnessed the miracle of the dead coming back to themselves.

They slurred their questions to unfeeling gloved hands and cried out at the electric treatments, the invasive surgeries to their brain stems and spinal cords, the feedings that left them vomiting black gunk into the bucket she held steady to their pale lips. She heard them whispering in the night and when she could, she left the door open for them to steal away. Only one or two ever managed—notably, the grizzle-haired one who was their first test subject, who glanced suspiciously to the corner where she pretended to sleep when he broke his bonds and ran. Him and the one who'd been there second-longest, the one with the track marks and the scar down his face. That one, she'd seen hanging around 'Parnasse's group of lost boys. No business of hers, though. Head down, Eponine did what she did best. She survived.

But the Thenardiers and their scientists had made their breakthrough, reverse-engineering the neurotryptiline to create a compound that could turn any zombie rabid on ingestion. She watched their test subjects' eyes turn helpless, caged, as they frothed at the mouth and gnashed their teeth, aching to feed, to attack. Children, the easiest to capture, the ones who were least likely to escape. Her parents had procured them from asylums by posing as parents to the unwanted, the true orphans… and they had found Gavroche and reclaimed him too.

  
A week after she was forced to watch her remaining brother walk into their cement basement with a wary grin and his smart mouth and shut it as he saw the other children, the cages… a week after she was forced to watch in silence and provide only whispered support that she would get him out of here—that was when Cosette had been dragged in, head lolling from the cocktail Montparnasse’d injected her with that failed to make her talk. A spy, a saboteur, a woman who knew the resistance, who might be able to get them out. Eponine had been at this too long to trust a good thing that came out of nowhere, so she bided her time, whispered her words, and watched for the weak spots around her, the world that had always opened its shadows when she needed to slip away. In the deep fierce depths that burned behind her eyes, Eponine glared at the world behind her curtain of hair, thin arms strong and fists clenched beneath too-long sleeves. She would burn down the world, she was certain of it, if it would keep her and her siblings safe.

  
(Azelma, who had run to the HVF when they accepted everyone with open arms, had gone missing at the start of the year. But her younger sister knew to wait in their cabin base, gun loaded and bag packed. If she was still alive, Eponine would come for her, and they would change their shape to fit whatever hole the world would provide to hide in. )

 -------------

That night, Eponine crossed to the bed to hand the tray to Cosette, rather than setting it by the bed as usual. She didn’t attempt to slip any paper into the hands that reach back, but nodded at the plate, eyes focused meaningfully on the sandwich. Cosette nodded back, as slight a movement as she could make it.

  
Pulling the tray into her lap, she asked in a loud voice, “Still no chance of that shower?” Eponine caught the glance she sent to the door and frowned.

  
“Could maybe steal you some deodorant,” she allowed, her voice the harsh rasp of a dehydrated crow. She crossed back to the door, leaning fully against it and blocking most of the inset window with the back of her head. Lounged back like that, she looked tall in a way the slump of her shoulders tried to belie. Cosette acknowledged the move by grabbing the sandwich and rolling onto her side to eat it, like she was just too tired to eat sitting up. There was no peanut butter between the slices of bread, and she carefully didn’t let on when her teeth met something too fibrous and compact to be edible. In a smooth movement, she rolled to her stomach and pulled the notecard from the bread with her free hand, stuffing it beneath her pillow. Kicking her feet idly, she finished the last of her tasteless meal, lingering over the apple so she could pull the card loose and read it in private. Eponine hummed a surprisingly sweet tune, eyes focused on the ceiling.

  
At last, Cosette tossed the core onto the tray and gestured for Eponine to come take it, loath to break their pattern of moving and unmoved. “The café musain. Ask for Musichetta,” she whispered when the other girl was close enough to hear. Eponine wished her good night with a crooked smile and closed the door behind her. Cosette rolled to her back, the note a light secret beneath her head. She didn't need to take it out again to read the words, scrawled in black ink in a careful hand.

  
**“Need to get bro out tonight. Where is safe?”**

 ------------

Jehan crept up behind Enjolras and cleared their throat. “You’re going to have to stop the sad martyr thing sometime,” they said gently.

Enjolras shifted slightly in his seat but remained where he was, staring at the table. What had been a break room for the corporation that provided their abandoned building had been transformed into a kitchen of sorts— although no human would be able to survive on the contents of the single fridge. Cartons of neurotryptiline in their original packaging waited to be used sat stacked beside the humming box full of sheeps' brains. Enjolras kept his eyes on the applicator he held in his hands, the livid green liquid that separated him from the rabids glinting in its chamber.

  
“Dose me?” he asked, holding the applicator up. Jehan cradled it in their hands like a precious egg, then braced a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder as they plunged the needle into his back and dispensed the medicine. Enjolras waited for the kick that would spin him off into another flashback, but his brain apparently decided to spare him that hardship twice in one day.

  
“I do know what I’m talking about with the martyr thing, you know,” Jehan said nonchalantly. “Seeing as I became one after my death… it seems.” Enjolras twitched a shoulder instinctively, an aborted flinch. Jehan slid their hand over the shoulder, tapped a thumb against it. “I do know how to google,” they added thoughtfully.

  
“Do you want me to apologize?” Enjolras said, hunching in on himself. The posture looked entirely wrong on his shoulders. “They killed you. I couldn’t just stand by.” Jehan hummed consideringly.

  
“You didn’t even know me,” they said. “But after I died, you created chaos to get my name remembered.” Their hand ghosted over Enjolras’s back, nearing but not quite touching the exit wounds. Enjolras shuddered, eyes wincing closed.

  
“It was wrong, what they did to you. And I met people who knew you, who told me what you were like… You mattered. I had to make people see that.” Jehan nodded to themself, then slid around Enjolras to grab another chair and sit across from him.

  
“I have two things to say to you,” they said, face uncharacteristically serious. “And then I’m going to let you be to think about them. But until then, you’re going to sit here and listen and stop looking all sad puppy—that’s Grantaire’s job.”

  
“Wha- but—“ Enjolras stopped abruptly when Jehan’s hand found its way over his mouth, the poet raising an eyebrow at him fondly.  
“I’ve babysat, you’re not going to lick my hand and gross me out. And we don't need to breathe, so unless you nod that you’re going to sit and shut up, I will keep my hand on your face this whole time.”

  
Enjolras furrowed his brow but nodded slowly. Jehan grinned.

  
“Good! First, then, this thing you’re doing, blaming yourself for what happened when you were rabid… I can see why you might think that, but you’re misplacing the blame.” Jehan sat back crossing their arms over their chest. “It’s my fault, everything that happened to you.”

  
Enjolras opened his mouth in protest, and Jehan raised a warning hand.

  
“You wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for me. I got offed in an alley by a guy who followed me from a bar, and that would have been all anyone knew about me if you hadn’t taken my death as a sign to make the streets safer.” Jehan half-smiled. “So you did your movement and died in the process and none of it would have happened if I hadn’t died first. And then we were both brought back by whatever and went on an unconscious killing spree for a couple years until the cure was made.”

  
“You didn’t ask to die!” Enjolras cried out. “You should have been safe, it was some fucking asshole with a gun and… patriarchal masculine values who tried to turn you into a statistic. It wasn’t your fault, none of it.”

  
Jehan raised an eyebrow. “So… you die in an attempt to keep me from being just a statistic, then get raised and do the exact same things I did… but I’m innocent and you’re a monster? Do you see the double standard here?”

  
Enjolras huffed out a sigh. “I don’t need you to tell me that… But I made my choices when I went to that rally. Your choice was taken from you.”

  
“Gah, you’re impossible.” Jehan turned away, throwing their hands in the air dramatically. “We all did things we’re not proud of, you are no worse than the rest of us. That’s why, as a community, we have to move on, TOGETHER. You’re trying to stay back, and that’s not you.”

  
“You’re wrong,” Enjolras said calmly. “We’re not the same. You were in a rabid state when you awoke, you told me about the fuzziness, the hunger.”

  
“So were you!” Jehan shot back.

  
Enjolras pulled his lips into something that might almost resemble a smile. “I told you… I remember everything since I awoke. My mind felt so clear, it was like this cloud had been hanging over me all my life and it finally swept away. I just finally felt. So. Free.” He chuckled, the sound choking out of his throat like a sob. “And there were people around, running, screaming from the others… Some of them grabbed guns and shot indiscriminately, wounded their neighbors as well as us. And that’s when I got my first taste of blood.”

  
He wiped a hand over his lips. “I’m different from you. You were rabid, you couldn’t help yourself. But when it started? I was aware. I… made the choice.” He stood up and turned away, not wanting to see Jehan’s horrified face. He wasn’t prepared for the deep laugh that came from behind him, where Grantaire stood propped against the doorway.

  
“Good god, you drama queen!” He exclaimed. Enjolras glared at him, folding his arms defensively around his middle. “Do you not have any idea what the rabid state is?” he continued.

  
“Dissociative fugue caused by a lack of neurotransmitters,” Enjolras shot back. “I heard it enough times in the asylum, fuck you very much.”

  
“Yeah, well, the fuzzy and forgetful thing’s a myth,” Grantaire responded bluntly. “Some people, sure, they don’t remember a thing. But most people will just latch onto the excuse, the symptoms, they don’t remember.” He grinned somewhat nastily. “Then there are stubborn bastards who insist they were conscious monsters and try and drown in self-pity.” Enjolras could actually feel his eyes heat up with outrage.

  
“Why you cynical ASSHOLE—“ he exclaimed. Grantaire dipped a mocking bow, waving an arm at Jehan.

  
“J, dear fellow, would you mind explaining to E what fugue state feels like?”

  
Enjolras turned slowly back to the table, where Jehan had their head propped on one hand, a small smile circling their lips.

  
“’Fugue state: Often characterized by memory loss, significant stress or impairment, or the creation of a new identity: a state in which a person acts in a way that’s unlike their usual behavior.’” They stated as if quoting from a dictionary. “So unless you were killing people and eating their brains before you rose from the dead, it’s pretty likely you had that too.”

  
Enjolras gaped, momentarily wordless. "But-- I mean, I remember--"

  
Jehan sighed. "You remember the faces of the people you killed. So do most of us. It doesn't change the fact that you wouldn't have killed them if you could have stopped it." They raised their eyebrows, looking at Enjolras with an incongruously serious expression. "Enj, dwelling on what can't be changed is a waste of time. If you're not going to appreciate the fact that you're alive and aware, then..." They sighed. "Then you're wasting your miracle. And most people only live to get one."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we get Eponine's backstory and Enjolras finally gets confronted about his issues. How dare he be traumatized after killing and eating people?
> 
> After this, updates may get less frequent, but definitely more action-filled. It's just that this was the last chapter I had pre-written, so... from now on I shoot without a script.
> 
> CHAPTER THE NEXT: grantaire and enjolras talk about his sister, they get news from an unexpected source. Things heat up for Eponine and Cosette. Stay tuned!


	8. Out of the Frying Pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Wait. Ep... where are they? Are they okay?" With his sister turned to the open door, he couldn't see her face. She stood stock-still, barely breathing.
> 
>  
> 
> "I'm going to find them. And then I'll come get you." When Ep said it, it was more than a promise. It was a mandate. She would make things right.
> 
>  
> 
> "Okay," he said, because there wasn't anything else to say. He walked past her, into the moonless night, and couldn't help looking back. His big sister had never seemed so tall to him as she did now, standing squarely between him and the cages, the hunger. He knew he'd see her again soon.
> 
>  
> 
> "Gav," she said softly, before he could turn to go. "Call me when you're with them. As soon as... When you're safe."

He was lost in a hazy fog of mindless hunger. Images faded in and out, faces that barely sparked memories, memories which swirled away into the ever-present hunger. He couldn't think, could barely move, but his hands clenched and unclenched in the bars of his cage, and some primal instinct made him leap forward and growl at every hand that came close. He could hear others somewhere nearby, rattles of bars and mindless growls. He could barely see anything beyond his bars, dim gloom that alternated with blinding white light when the hands came closer, hands that gleamed sharply and voices that melted into senseless sounds, like a mosquito's whining buzz in his ear. The hands came closer and he growled, as every hungry thing in that place growled, and rattled the bars, and the voices laughed and went past.

  
Gavroche was no stranger to hunger. It was his closest companion, even before he died, nestling in his gut and clawing at his ribs, his spine. He was hungry when he woke up, hungry when Eponine brought bread and peanut butter to make it through the day, hungry when he went to sleep. The only times he had not been hungry had been when Eponine had managed to steal or beg well enough that he and Azelma, little Peter and Jean had gorged themselves sick before their parents could find them. Week-old bagels, burnt pastries, once an entire steak that some restaurant prick had sent back for being "over-salted." Then the hunger had retreated behind the heavy ache in his stomach, the uncomfortably stretched feeling of being full. Before they'd been adopted, the younger boys had puked, sometimes, like they just couldn't handle having enough for once. Gavroche had curled up around his aching belly, waiting for the pain to pass and for the hunger to return.

  
Eponine had pursed her lips and cleaned up the mess before their father could find out. When it was done, she'd pulled them all down to their mattress bed, tucking their thin blanket so no one's feet met the chill air. Sleepily, Gavroche had thought that Eponine would have tucked that blanket around them and kept it there, kept them all hidden and warm forever if she could. He wished she could have. Before he'd been killed for letting the wrong information go to the wrong hands, he might have believed that Eponine could do anything to protect them. But maybe he'd just come back too different. Maybe she couldn't help him, despite her promise.  
He'd waited for days, while they refused him neurotryptiline and watched as the hunger began to take over. He'd waited for her to come at night and set him free. And maybe somewhere in the hunger, he still believed she might come.

  
It was the only thing that kept him from knocking her to the floor and bashing her head open when she finally did open the gate. A split second of hesitation was all he could manage, but it was enough for her to sweep his legs out from under him, drop him flat on the floor and plunge a needle into his neck.

  
She stayed braced over him, one knee pinning him to the ground, while he struggled and growled and wept at the silent, steady dimming of the hunger. She kept him there long after he quit struggling and lay still. From the unrelenting pressure of her knee against his spine, he got the impression she'd stay there forever if she had to.

  
"E- Ep?" he coughed. "Let me up."

  
Before he could say anything more he was pulled up to his knees and into a vice-like hug. For a moment, he let his face fall into the curve of his sister's shoulder, surrounded and enfolded by her strong arms. It was weird that it wasn't weird, leaning into when minutes ago he would have gladly tried to kill her. Eponine didn't do hugs like this, as a general rule, unless you were sick or close to dying. He guessed that his current status qualified. Maybe she'd just never let go.

  
Without a word, Eponine tightened her arms until Gavroche could almost feel his ribs starting to strain. Then she let go and straightened, meeting his eyes head-on. "I'm getting you out now," she whispered. "But I can't go with you all the way, Gav."

  
Then she was on her feet and striding away, leaving him no choice but to scramble up and follow her. Together, they crept out of the room, into the hallway. Eponine reached back and pulled him closer to her as they slipped past closed doors, rooms full of clanging, rattling, inhuman growls. For the first time, he wondered exactly how many rotters they had taken besides him. And if maybe--

  
"Ep? Are the others okay?" he whispered. His sister's hand clenched tighter on his wrist, in a grip that might have bruised if he still had circulation. She hissed at him, a brief "not-now" sort of noise, and kept pulling him onward, twisting and turning down different side halls until she came upon a door with a flickering green EXIT marked above it, surrounded by haphazardly packed cardboard boxes. From the shadows behind the heap of rubbish, she pulled out a lumpy backpack and pressed it into his hands.

  
"This has a map, a cellphone, a month's worth of neurotryptiline and a packet for the people you're going to. They're gonna want to see it, but don't give it to them until they get you someplace safe. Tell them there's more where it came from," she said fiercely. Gav blinked and nodded, pulling the backpack over his shoulders. From one of her pockets, Eponine pulled out a jar of what looked like beige paste and a white contact case. He recognized it as the effects the PDS asylum had given him before he was released. It seemed so far away, like something that had happened to someone else.

  
She held them out to him but hesitated, darting a glance down the hall. Seeing and hearing nothing, she cracked open the case and gestured for him to put in the contacts. Once he was done blinking away the residual tears, she crouched down and started smearing the makeup on his face and neck, blending it in with impatient fingers. It felt like years ago, when he'd come home caked in mud and dirt and she'd wring out a towel to wipe it away. Something ached in his chest and throat, a rasping ache like he wanted to sob. If Eponine noticed his breath hitch, she gave no sign.

  
Minutes of padding and smearing later, she leaned back and scrutinized him, as if fixing his face in her memory. Then she snorted and rummaged through the bag on his back, pulling out a thick hoodie.

  
"Wear this and keep out of strong light until you get there. If anyone starts to look at you funny, take out the cell and pretend to call your mom." She rocked back on her heels, stood up and pulled the door open. Gavroche grabbed her hand.

  
"Wait. Ep... where are they? Are they okay?" With his sister turned to the open door, he couldn't see her face. She stood stock-still, barely breathing.

  
"I'm going to find them. And then I'll come get you." When Ep said it, it was more than a promise. It was a mandate. She would make things right.

  
"Okay," he said, because there wasn't anything else to say. He walked past her, into the moonless night, and couldn't help looking back. His big sister had never seemed so tall to him as she did now, standing squarely between him and the cages, the hunger. He knew he'd see her again soon.

  
"Gav," she said softly, before he could turn to go. "Call me when you're with them. As soon as... When you're safe."

  
He nodded, because he had to, and flashed her a grin, because she needed to see it. Then he turned and ran into the night.

When he reached the Musain and asked for Musichetta, a tall Latina woman came and ushered him into the back room, sat him down and asked for his story. He tried calling Eponine then, but the phone rang out. He listened to her answering machine in silence. "This is Eponine. If I don't pick up, you know what to do."

He did.  
\-----------------------------------------

  
Grantaire should have expected it. He had expected it, ever since Apollo had arrived, after Cosette failed to contact him. He just hadn't expected it to happen now, when he was three sheets to the wind on sheep's brains and stumbling back into his room to pass out. Of course it was the night Enjolras had decided to snoop through his stuff. He leaned on the doorway and watched quietly as the man attempted to rifle through his things without disturbing the random piles of shit all across the floor. He smothered a laugh when Enjolras tripped on a pile of paintbrushes and barely avoided colliding with the nearest wall.

  
Finally he just thought, 'Fuck it,' and knocked on his own door. Enjolras shot up from his crouch and overbalanced, falling half-on, half-off the bed. Grantaire smirked down at him, relishing the sight of that piercing blue glare beneath disheveled curls.

  
"Mind telling me what you're doing here?" he drawled. Enjolras huffed, blowing on of his curls out of his eyes.

  
"Looking for your phone. Jehan says you have one." To give the man credit, he recovered quickly. Grantaire could almost believe it was the truth.

  
"You could have just asked," he pointed out. And fished his burner out of his pocket, tossing it to Enjolras. He rather enjoyed the open gape, the way Enjolras fumbled the catch in his disbelief. He took the chance to step closer, skirting the piles on the floor with ease. "And while you're at it, you can just ask me what I know about Cosette, too."

  
"What do you know about Cosette?" Enjolras fired back, while he opened the phone and began searching its contents. Grantaire rolled his eyes, waiting for Enjolras to ascertain that there really wasn't anything on the phone and focus back on him. It didn't take long.

  
"Look, all I told her was I knew Montparnasse had connections to the Blue Oblivion manufacturers. And where he might go to be alone. Anything she did with that information is not my problem." He shrugged. And smirked, when Enjolras swiveled to face him, eyes burning.

  
"Not your-- You led my sister into a trap?" Enjolras dropped the phone and grabbed Grantaire's shirt, in a tight grip that suggested he'd prefer to wring Grantaire's neck. He leaned in, face inches from Grantaire's. "Tell. Me. Where. She is."

  
Grantaire shrugged eloquently, eyes caught in Enjolras's. "And what makes you think I would know?" he murmured. The way this was going, he expected Enjolras to attack or explode in incandescent rage at any moment.

  
He wasn't disappointed. In an instant, Enjolras rose and dragged him up, pushing him backwards until he hit the wall. Grantaire couldn't help himself. He laughed. The sound made Enjolras snarl, curling his lip over sharp white teeth.

  
"You FUCKING BASTARD, TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!"

  
At this point, Grantaire was expecting to be punched, at the very least. He even agreed he might deserve it. Bossuet's sudden arrival put a damper on things.

  
The man burst in the door, tripped immediately over a pile of laundry and landed flat on his face. Enjolras froze, fists loosening against Grantaire's shirt. He took the opportunity to snake his arms around the hold and turn it against him, pulling Enjolras's arms behind him in a shoulder-lock. Even if the undead didn't feel pain as keenly, Enjolras wouldn't be able to force his way out of the hold without dislocating something.

  
Opponent neutralized, Grantaire focused on the new arrival. "Bossuet, my man! What's up?" he asked.

  
Bossuet got up slowly, shuffling his feet until he found a bare patch of floor-space. He grimaced at the two of them. "Can you stop flirting now? I have some news."

  
"Wha-- this is not--" Enjolras sputtered.

  
"What kind of news?" Grantaire cut in, letting Enjolras go and putting his hands up in the universal "I'm not threatening you" pose. Bossuet looked between the two of them before answering.

  
"An undead kid came to Musichetta. Said he'd been held in a lab, experimented on until his sister got him out. Said his sister figured out where to send him by asking a captive named Cosette."

  
Enjolras started forward, fists clenched. "So you are part of it. Why are you telling _him_?" He glared at Grantaire before focusing back on Bossuet. "And for fuck's sake, WHERE IS MY SISTER?"  
Bossuet took a step back, foot landing square on a pile of newspapers with Grantaire's drying watercolors. Grantaire winced. Neither of the other two appeared to notice.

  
"Look, I'll tell you what I heard, but we can't just head there right now," Bossuet said placatingly. "From what I heard, there are a ton of not-too-scrupulous people in there and a fuckton of untreated PDS people in need of rescue. We can't go in without back-up."

  
Enjolras growled but turned away, striding past Bossuet and out the door. "Come on," he snapped. Grantaire saw this as invitation enough, following a step behind Bossuet. He grimaced to see the other man still had one of his more recent paintings stuck to his heel.

  
The three headed to Enjolras's room, where the blond wordlessly tore through his stacks of newspaper until he pulled out a phone, a military-grade radio and-- Grantaire raised an eyebrow-- what looked like a fucking machete. Jesus, what did it say about him that he found that kind of hot?

  
He was distracted by his thoughts when Enjolras turned on the phone and started a call, lips pressed tight. When it picked up, he turned the call to speaker and said, "Combeferre, I think I have a lead."

  
A tenor voice asked, "Safeword?"

  
Enjolras scowled. "Dammit Courfeyrac! I'm not in the fucking mood, and I have a lead on Cosette!"

  
"Come on Enj. Are you under duress? Safeword."

  
Enjolras groaned. "Robespierre. Happy? You're on fucking speaker, and also I might fucking know where Cosette is! Where's Combeferre?"

  
"He's driving now, because Musichetta called us when she heard. We'll be there in three hours, so don't go doing anything stupid, okay?" Courfeyrac responded. Another deeper voice in the background said something.

  
"Put Combeferre on," Enjolras ordered, obviously out of patience. There was a sigh, and a rustle, and the other voice said, "Seriously, Enj, don't do anything until we get there."

  
"But--"

  
"It's not as simple as it sounds. She's being held in what sounds like the basement of a huge apartment complex. The kid who got us the info has said he can help us find her, but only if we let him come along."

  
Enjolras shook his head, "No, no, it's way too dangerous. No fucking way."

  
Combeferre sighed. "He says he knew you would say that. When he found out we knew you. Kid's name is Gavroche, and he keeps insisting that his sister is in there, in some kind of trouble, and he won't give us any details until we promise to take him with."

  
Enjolras sunk from his tense crouch to sit on the floor, mouth quirked in an unwilling smile. "Of course it's Gavroche." he remarked, seeming somewhat calmer. Well, calmer than a raging inferno, but still angry enough to set a forest fire, Grantaire thought.

"Look," Enjolras continued, "We can have him lead us to the buildings, maybe stay at the door to make sure no one makes a break for it. But he's not coming in. These fuckers wouldn't hesitate to kill a kid."

  
"Hmmm, good luck with that," Jehan's light voice came from the hall. They stood planted in the doorway, arms folded. "Gavroche wouldn't let something like that stop him."

  
Enjolras turned and gaped. Grantaire noted that the dumbstruck expression was unfairly attractive on him. He turned to meet his friend's eyes, taking in their stance and tone. It was the same tone they'd used to get Grantaire to try another rehab clinic when he'd given up on the first... and the second.

  
"And you're coming with us, right?" He asked. Enjolras rounded on the two of them, while Bossuet backed out of the way.

  
"No, no, you--" Enjolras began. Jehan cut him off.

  
"I have two black belts and a gun. And it's Gavroche. I'm coming." Jehan stated. Enjolras must have noticed the stance, the steel in their spine. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and turned back to the phone.

  
"'Ferre, you got all that?"

  
"Yeah, we got another badass coming in to help," Combeferre said easily.

  
"Two," said Bossuet, waving a hand like the man on the other phone could see it.

  
"Three," Grantaire added, smirking at Enjolras.

  
"And my axe!" cried Courfeyrac's voice. "Sorry, couldn't resist. Look, 'Ferre is driving. Keep in contact with Musichetta, grab some arsenal and get ready to move. We'll be there in two and a half."

  
"See you," Enjolras responded, and snapped the phone shut. Grantaire looked around the people in the room, and got a terrible idea.

  
"So, how about we get the other guys on board with this?" He jerked his thumb to where the party was still going on. Enjolras unclenched his fists with a force of effort.

  
He sighed. "Might as well ask them now and give them time to sober up before we get going."

  
"Will do!" Grantaire chirped, throwing in a salute. Enjolras rolled his eyes.

  
"Cosette better be alright," he muttered, throwing himself to his feet. "Come on." With that, he strode out of the room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally they know where to go to find Cosette! Chapter the next: why Eponine didn't answer her phone, and exactly how deep in trouble she and Cosette are. Stay tuned!


	9. Into the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosette stood balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to spring in whichever direction Eponine told her to. Eponine wished she had a gun, a kitchen knife, hell, even a rusty pair of scissors to give the other girl. Tall, solidly muscled and alert beneath the weeks-old rumpled clothes and disheveled hair, Cosette seemed like the kind of person who could take down a man seven ways with her bare hands. Eponine wasn't generally one to admire muscles, but she had to admit (to herself) that it looked like Cosette could bench-press her without breaking a sweat.
> 
>  
> 
> Turning away, Eponine crept down the hall in the direction of the nearest exit, straining to listen for anyone who might be coming. The hallway they turned down seemed quiet, but it was fully lit and connected to the Thenardier's auxiliary control room, (i.e. where everyone played cards in their off time). If they could just get past there without anyone noticing, she could get them to the exit before her father found her. Probably. This was not her original plan, her original plan had a lot more to do with GOING BACK TO ERASE THE FOOTAGE BEFORE ANYONE FOUND OUT. But that was fucked now.

  

Eponine stood at the doorway watching until her brother disappeared into the night. Then she turned and headed back into the complex. She had work to do and the security tapes weren't going to erase themselves.

 

At this time of night, the halls were generally empty and dimly lit, with people holing up in their rooms to sleep or hanging in the rec centers for card games. Eponine kept to the shadows and wove her way past the labs and closer to the security center. Claquesous was on watch but she'd slipped a crushed sleeping pill into his coffee before she left to get Gavroche out. With any luck, he'd stay knocked out for the next few hours-- plenty of time for her to disable the cameras and delete the feed from tonight.

 

Of course, it wouldn't take them long to figure out the person with the most motive to rescue her little brother, but by then she could free Cosette and they could both work on dispensing neurotrypiline and arming the undead to help their jail break. And by then, she hoped, she prayed, the group Gavroche was off to meet would have reviewed the information she sent and come to surround the building so none of these shitty people (and yes, she includes her parents in this) would ever be able to put anyone in a cage again.

 

But of course her plan fell to pieces before she could even begin phase two. The sounds of movement from the guardroom took away any hope she had of sneaking in and deleting the tapes.

 

Better know who had found out and what they planned to do about it, she reasoned, creeping forward until she heard muffled voices raised in anger.

 

"--set the little bastard free? He could tell someone where we are!"

 

Cursing silently, she crept closer. Her father's voice came through clearly as he responded, "It's too grainy to see faces. Who's the girl?"

 

Babet's basso growled, "That's your other brat. Can't recognize your own kids?"

 

Eponine didn't wait to hear the reply. She slunk back the way she came, until she thought they would no longer be able to hear her. Then she rounded a corner and pelted towards the room where Cosette was being held. Luckily, as the person in charge of making sure their living hostage remained that way, she'd been carrying the key on a chain for days.

 

Thirty seconds later, she knocked on Cosette's door and hissed, "Take out the camera!"

 

For a moment in which her heart roared in her ears, she thought Cosette might be asleep. Or taken somewhere else. Or killed for convenience. Or--

 

Mattress springs twanged in protest as the room's occupant rolled off of it and threw something in a heavy rustle of cloth. Eponine wasted no time unlocking the door and ducking inside.

 

She glanced at Cosette, at the slack drape of blanket covering the room's single camera, and blew out a sigh.

 

"Let's go!" Eponine whispered, pulling the door open for Cosette. The other girl nodded and brushed past her, bare feet silent against the floor. Eponine followed her out, peered down the hall, and bent over the door handle to lock it back up. "Might make them waste more time trying to find us," she muttered, looking back.

 

Cosette stood balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to spring in whichever direction Eponine told her to. Eponine wished she had a gun, a kitchen knife, hell, even a rusty pair of scissors to give the other girl. Tall, solidly muscled and alert beneath the weeks-old rumpled clothes and disheveled hair, Cosette seemed like the kind of person who could take down a man seven ways with her bare hands. Eponine wasn't generally one to admire muscles, but she had to admit (to herself) that it looked like Cosette could bench-press her without breaking a sweat.

 

Turning away, Eponine crept down the hall in the direction of the nearest exit, straining to listen for anyone who might be coming. The hallway they turned down seemed quiet, but it was fully lit and connected to the Thenardier's auxiliary control room, (i.e. where everyone played cards in their off time). If they could just get past there without anyone noticing, she could get them to the exit before her father found her. Probably. This was not her original plan, her original plan had a lot more to do with GOING BACK TO ERASE THE FOOTAGE BEFORE ANYONE FOUND OUT. But that was fucked now. 

 

Jittery with the very real possibility of capture, Eponine caught Cosette's eye and gestured to the hallway past the door and around the bend. Hell, maybe her luck would give them a break and the control room would be empty. Or everyone would be distracted by her mother's blatant cardsharping.

 

Cosette nodded and opened a hand in front of her, a very clear "after you." Eponine bit her lip-- she hated having people at her back-- but pushed herself away from the door and through the corridor, walking purposefully and normally as she could. Cosette ghosted behind her, bare feet padding lightly on the carpeted floor without making a sound. 

 

When they neared the card room, Eponine reached behind her, pressing her palm to open air in a silent "stop." She sensed Cosette freeze as she pulled her shoulders back and walked closer to the doorway-- open, of course, because fuck her life.

 

Pulling in a deep breath, she slunk closer in, straining to hear beyond the furious thumping heartbeat in her ears. No loud swearing, no easy interchange of insults meant that they weren't distracted by a game... but she thought she heard something shifting in there. And then she heard a very familiar sort of rumbling growl.

 

"Rabids!" she hissed to Cosette, inching forward to try and get a glimpse. Just before she could peek her head around the frame, a grey-skinned figure leaped forward, black fluid leaking from its gnashing mouth.

 

"FUCK!" she shouted, leaping backwards. Cosette's hands caught her shoulders and pulled her further back, out of range of the undead man's flailing arms. Heart racing in her ears, Eponine took in a shuddering breath and looked to the cruel noose wrapped around the undead's neck, attached to a pole like a dog-catcher's tool.

 

"Watch out, honey, he's hungry!" Her mother called, half the words lost in a breathless laugh as she pulled back at the leash.

 

"God, I hate your parents," Cosette murmured, voice close to Eponine's ear.

 

"Believe me, not as much as I do," she responded, taking the moment to pull away from the other girl's hands. Both girls backed away slowly from the undead man as his leash allowed him small, jerk-y steps forward. Eponine chanced a look behind her and saw, of fucking course, her father and Babet blocking the way with shotguns in hand. They were fucked.

 

She said as much to Cosette, who shrugged. "Not dead yet," was her reassuring-as-hell response.

 

"That can be remedied," Babet growled. "I'm sure the scientists wouldn't mind a few more corpses to work on. They swear they're close to manufacturing their own death-cure."

 

Cosette turned to Eponine, opening her mouth. All she managed to get out was, "Did y--Guh!" before she was cut off by the sickening crack of the butt of Babet's shotgun smashing into her knee.

 

"Cosette!" Eponine reached for her, grabbing her shoulders before the other girl could collapse on the floor. She staggered, unprepared for the weight.

 

Caught between her mother's undead guard dog and her father's vicious friends, it was all she could do to back up and pull Cosette with her to lean on the wall. Swallowing, ignoring the other girl's hiss of pain, she asked, "What are you going to do with us?"

 

"Do?" her mother laughed. "We aren't going to do anything to you. You and that _rotter-lover_ have been trying to get at our test subjects for days!"

 

Cosette chose that moment to twist herself up from her half-hunched posture and spit, "They're not test subjects, they're _people_ , you sadistic bitch!" Even breathless with pain, she mustered a glare that could have fried eggs.

 

Eponine tensed as her mother walked closer, letting the leash bring her slavering undead within arm's reach. She slid backwards against the wall, wedging herself between Cosette and the thing's grasping hands. "Shut up!" she muttered to the other girl.

 

"Scared, 'Ponine?" her father lilted, in the same voice he'd used to taunt her into stealing as a kid. "I thought you liked rotters. I thought you'd like a chance to see some more, _up close and personal._ "

 

In spite of herself, Eponine shivered at the tone. When Babet leveled the shotgun at her and Cosette and ordered them away from the wall, she pulled the other girl's arm over her shoulder and did as she was told.

 

Step by limping step, she supported her only ally as they walked further and further from the exit. Closer and closer to the rooms full of caged, rabid undead. With that shotgun and her mother's rabid pet on a leash, there wasn't much more she could do but keep Cosette from falling on her injured leg, and pray that whatever help Gavroche had managed to find, it would come quickly.

 

\-----------------

 

Before he died, Enjolras had given fiery, impassioned speeches on the necessity of equal rights, on the horrible unfairness of their classist, racist, divided society and the need for ordinary citizens to stand up to the tyranny of status quo. He'd prided himself on piecing together words and ideals, crafting an argument of pathos and biting wit, of frustrated outrage at the plain injustice in the world. He'd given speeches to young students and middle-aged teachers, to crowds of cheering activists and to silent panels of educators, and he'd always crafted his words to strike the right tone, to appeal to the spark of goodness and altruism within his listeners.

 

This was not one of those speeches.

 

Standing in the doorway of the common room, staring at the pale faces and pinprick eyes of the PDS sufferers he'd come to know over the past week, Enjolras stalled. Grantaire had called for silence, and the music came to a belated stop. Plates of sheep's brains were-- Enjolras could hear Courfeyrac's snicker in his head-- _sheepishly_ set aside as the somewhat intoxicated residents turned to face the four interlopers intruding on their merriment.

 

Enjolras's mouth opened. He glanced at Jehan and Bossuet, at Grantaire standing beside them. Jehan nodded at him, while Grantaire made an impatient "go on" sort of gesture. He sighed.

 

"My sister's been taken." His voice wavered. He cleared his throat. "By a group of people making Blue Oblivion. I need to go and get her back. If any of you want to help-- and you don't need to!-- I'd really appreciate it."

 

He looked down, twisting his hands. The last time he'd tried to make a stand, to lead a group of people in order to change something he thought was wrong... well, it had been the last thing he ever did. As a living person, not... as he was now.

 

"Wow," Grantaire said, breaking through his thoughts. "That was... such a shitty rally-the-troops speech." Enjolras looked up to give him a half-hearted glare. It only made Grantaire grin, for some reason. "My turn!" he said, still smiling, walking to stand at Enjolras's side. His hand settled heavy on Enjolras's shoulder, a clasp nearly strong enough to anchor him.

 

Looking out at the group, Grantaire abruptly became serious. "You know me," he said. "You know who I was, to the Prophet. A lot of you came here because you heard of him, because you had nowhere else to go. Some of you may have come here to feel safe, to feel like a part of something again. And that's what I wanted too, when I joined the Prophet." His hand gripped tighter against Enjolras's shoulder, like he needed to steady himself.

 

"Some of you may have heard about the other Apostles. The ones who escaped from labs that weren't working on ways to bring our minds back. Places where we-- where they were experimented on. People who wanted to see what makes us tick. Take-- take us apart and put us back together again."

 

Enjolras stared at Grantaire, what he could see of his profile. He'd never seen the other man without a sardonic half-smile, like everything he saw was bitterly funny in some way. He'd never seen Grantaire look less like smiling.

 

The other man took a breath and went on, "I was one of them. The ones that got away. And I came here so I'd never have to go back, because what they did--" He blinked hard.

 

"But I met Enjolras's sister. She's living, but she wanted to look into the labs. Into what they were doing. Because a lot of the places that make Blue Oblivion are trying to-- to take back what makes us people. So they can experiment... And she said, when we met, that she just wanted to stop them. To make the world a safer place for the undead, so her brother wouldn't have to be afraid to walk down the street."

 

Enjolras's eyes were stinging. He couldn't look away from Grantaire, from the way the other man looked around the room, meeting face after face square-on.

 

"So I told her how to meet one of the suppliers for Blue Oblivion and I never heard from her again. Until today, when a kid from one of the labs got out, got to one of the safe places she told me about. And he says that Enjolras's sister, and his sister, Eponine, who got him out of there-- they're in trouble. So we're gonna go find them and get them out. But we need your help." Here he looked hard at the people in the room, shifting where they stood.

 

"These girls are stuck in there, with people who think nothing of making other people lab rats, of _vivisecting them_." Grantaire was incandescent with rage. "And they're in there for helping people like us, for trying to protect us. So we need you, anyone who can help, to come with us. To let them get free. To help the other undead in there who don't have neurotryptiline, don't have anyone to speak for them." For a moment, Grantaire turned to Enjolras, staring at him in a way that left him feeling raw and exposed. "To stand up for them to people who think we're less than human."

 

He turned back to the occupants of the room, who by now were standing up straight, faces set in determination, or anger, or what looked like the embers of righteousness. "We're leaving in three hours, meeting up with some of Enjolras's friends. So sober up and get ready for a rescue." With that, he nodded, and turned to leave the room, pulling Enjolras with him.

 

"Wh--" As they walked down the hall, Enjolras could hear the silence breaking down behind them, turning into furious mutters, whispered arguments. He felt propelled by the hand on his shoulder, like a comet pulled into the orbit of a planet that had risen into its path. As they reached Grantaire's room, he pulled away and tried again. "Where did _that_ come from?"

 

Glancing back, Grantaire gave him a weak grin. "Inspired?"

 

"Were you serious?" he pressed. "About the labs, the-- Did that happen to you?"

 

Grantaire glanced away, striding into his room. Enjolras growled, following him in. "I _said_ \--"

 

A shirt hit him in the face before he could go on. Spluttering slightly, he pulled it off to see--

 

Well.

 

In some places, Grantaire seemed to be more stitches than skin. The Y-mark traced in black across his chest made him look like a corpse in a police procedural show, closed up after autopsy. There were what looked like jagged wounds across his stomach, patches where the skin had been carelessly cut open and even more carelessly closed again. Enjolras couldn't quite hold in his gasp when Grantaire turned his back, exposing a black railroad of stitches up the entire length of his spine.

 

"What did they _do_ to you?" he blurted. Grantaire bent over his mattress, scrounging up another shirt and a thick vest of some kind.

 

"Anything they could think of," he said shortly, shrugging into the vest-- the back said "Police" in thick white letters-- and pulling a loose shirt on over it.

 

"What--" Enjolras started again.

 

"Enj," Grantaire interrupted, with what sounded like exasperated fondness. "It's a long story. Ask your questions later."

 

Enjolras frowned, unconsciously pushing his lip out in an expression his sister had once dubbed the "kicked puppy pout." Grantaire met his eyes and sighed.

 

"I'll tell you if you really want to know, just-- later."

 

Enjolras looked away first.

 

"So what now? We have three hours," he pointed out. Looked at his watch and corrected, "Two and a half."

 

Grantaire nodded, looking around his room for something. With a brief 'aha!' he walked over to a pile of clothes by the wall and rustled through them for a second, coming up with a sizeable bowie knife in his hand. Enjolras stepped back without meaning to.

 

"Now," Grantaire announced, "We find as many Kevlar vests and helmets as we can. And then, we'll see how many of the people here actually know their way around a weapon." He grinned at Enjolras, who paused, then matched the expression with a grim smile of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting, I had a bit of that "I know where the story's going but not how to write it" writing block happen. Also got a part-time job and then got pretty sick, but meh. Next chapter the action starts up, so we'll see how that goes. Sorry for how choppy things get, and I hope you like how it's going so far! Questions, comments and kudos are all welcome :)
> 
> Also if you can't tell, I really like Eponine and Cosette together. We'll see how that develops as the story goes on :)))


	10. Conflagration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls' situation goes from bad to worse, while the barricade boys mount a rescue. Or try to, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed, I mainly just needed to write something, anything today. More updates to follow.

Cosette had been told off multiple times as a child for gritting her teeth-- her stepmother thought this was unattractive and unladylike, and had tried to convince her that if she bit down too hard, she'd crack all her teeth to bits.

 

She hadn't believed a word of it.

 

Now, though, standing in front of three psychopaths, one of whom had just bashed in her knee with a rifle... with the muscles in her jaw straining to keep in a scream... now she thought she could hear her teeth start to chip.

 

"Jesus fucking christ shitting on a cracker," she muttered, leaning into Eponine. The other girl bent down slightly to let Cosette slip an arm over her shoulders. "Ah fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," she hissed, taking a limping step closer.

 

"Try and hop," her fellow hostage advised, keeping an eye on the Thenardier gang.

 

"Yes, come along, bunny," giggled Mrs. Thenardier, hand toying with the leash looped around the undead guard's throat. "Hop along into your cage." With that, Mr. Thenardier and Babet gestured them forward, following behind with guns raised.

 

"Fuuu-- she's talking about where they keep the rest of them, isn't she," Cosette stated. "Of course. Goddamn fucking hell, I hate when you people have no imagination."

 

Eponine stiffened under her hold, but said nothing.

 

"Not you," she added belatedly. "You turned out okay for having the shittiest fucking parents ever."

 

Mr. Thenardier laughed, once. "You want another lame leg, bunny?"

 

Cosette opened her mouth again, probably to say something unwise, but Eponine dragged her forward, not-so-accidentally jarring her leg.

 

"Shut! up!" she whispered under the cover of Cosette's pain-filled hiss.

 

Mr. Thenardier was walking up behind them, peering over Eponine's shoulder. "I'm disappointed in you, my girl. I thought you had more family loyalty than to join up with these... necrophiles."

 

Eponine bit her lip, face flushing.

 

Mrs. Thenardier called out, "Is that why you let out the little one? Thought he was still your brother?"

 

The flush deepened as Eponine ducked her head, eyes fixed on the ground.

 

"They're just shambling corpses!" her mother insisted. "Your worthless brother died four years ago!"

 

"... not my only brother," Eponine whispered, so low Cosette barely heard her.

 

"Ep...onine," Cosette panted, not liking the way the other girl's shoulders were trembling. They had nearly made their way to the doorway marked with a sticky note marked "Lab."

 

"Stick them in with the little ones and make sure the cameras are rolling," Mr. Thenardier ordered Babet. "We might as well check out the bite hypothesis."

 

"They might even survive for a bit," Mrs. Thenardier remarked.

 

Cosette squeezed Eponine's shoulder as they made their three-legged shamble towards the nearest cage. Barely shoulder-height on them, its square footage left just enough space for two young undead to curl up on the floor with a few feet of open space near the door.

 

"Jesus fucking christ, mary and joseph," Cosette murmured, struggling a little against the doorway as Babet tried to push her in. With no change in expression, the man kicked her swollen leg and shoved her through the gap. Eponine tried to catch and steady her as she followed. The undead children stirred but didn't wake.

 

With a mocking _clink_ , the gate was shut and locked behind them. Cosette lost the next few minutes in a haze of bright red pain, lancing from her knee to the base of her skull. When she managed to control her breath again, Eponine had sat her against the gate and was crouching protectively between Cosette and the other occupants of the cage. She was biting her lip again, almost drawing blood as she worried at it.

 

"Whatever you do," Cosette whispered, "don't--"

 

"Wake them up?" Eponine asked. "Little too late for that." Two pairs of pinprick eyes blinked open and focused on the two of them.

 

For a breathless, eternal moment, Eponine tensed to fight them off, balling her hands into fists. She heard Cosette suck in a breath and let it out through her teeth as she tried to pull her legs in. At the other side of the cage, the undead children-- she took a moment to notice that they were a girl and a boy, both somewhere from 6 to 8 years old and frail-looking-- lay there unblinking, watching them.

 

Another moment, marked by the frantic thundering Eponine heard as her heart sped up.

 

Another.

 

"Why... aren't they attacking?" Cosette asked, voice breaking slightly.

 

"They haven't been fed in weeks," Eponine murmured back without moving. "Maybe they're too weak?"

 

"Jesus these fucking assholes, starving fucking children!" Cosette replied, voice sharpening with pain and anger. The children flinched.

 

"I think..." Eponine said carefully, "I think we're scaring them." To her horror, she felt her eyes begin to prickle with tears. "God, they're almost the same age as my youngest brothers."

 

Cosette was silent behind her for a moment. Then, "Scooch backwards," she ordered. "I want to try something."

 

Eponine slid her leg behind her, balancing carefully to move backward without unbalancing her crouch. She ended up almost next to Cosette's outstretched legs.

 

Behind her, the other girl took in a breath, and slowly, softly, began to hum. It took Eponine almost half a minute to recognize that the song was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

 

By then, the undead children had begun to sleepily blink their eyes closed, relaxing back into what passed for sleep.

 

"Jesus," Eponine whispered, muscles unclenching so slowly it hurt. "Not in fucking Kansas anymore?"

 

"Fuck off, it was my favorite movie," Cosette whispered back, before starting to hum it all over again.

 

"By the way," she muttered after another minute, when the kids showed no sign of waking, "if they make a move, you're on deck for the next song. My throat's dry as hell."

 

Eponine didn't realize until she started laughing that her cheeks were wet with tears.

 

 

\----------------

 

Outside the compound, Enjolras was losing an argument with a ten-year-old.

 

"For the last goddamn time, you are not coming in with us!" He stated, glaring at Gavroche. The boy folded his arms over his chest, severely unimpressed.

 

"Then I'm not telling you how to get to the cells," Gav responded.

 

This was their fourth round of this particular stand-off, and already their surrounding companions were starting to look longingly around for something that might serve as a gag.

 

"You're too young for this, you have to stay outside!" Enjolras hissed. "We'll get your sister out, and all the rest, but you need to stay to let the police in!"

 

Gavroche snorted. "Good fucking luck getting the coppers to come here. On the word of some rotters? Get real."

 

"We. Can't. Take. You. In. There." Enjolras bit out.

 

"Tough titties," Gavroche shot back, staring unblinkingly at the older man. Behind the two, Grantaire smirked. It was like an unstoppable force meeting a younger, more irritating immovable object.

 

"Ah fuck, Enj, let him come in but make him stay in the middle of the group, we can send him back if there's trouble," Courfeyrac interjected. Enjolras sent a betrayed glance at his friend, while Gavroche broke into a grin.

 

"Cool! Can I have a gun?" he asked, bouncing on his toes.

 

"Over my cold, dead body," Enjolras muttered.

 

"So in like, thirty seconds," Gavroche responded. "Cool."

 

Grantaire swore that Enjolras nearly smiled for a second before he forced his face into a frown. At that point, the last of the stragglers had shown up and were crowded around Combeferre to receive bulletproof vests, helmets, tasers and batons. The equipment was a mismatched assortment of police and military gear, some with obvious cracks and pitted scars from previous battles. Only a lucky few received handguns-- Combeferre had explained that their main objective was to get as far in as possible without making enough noise to alert the guards.

 

"Duck and run if you see anyone, the vests only protect part of you from bullets," he cautioned. "There will be one person with a walkie talkie in each group, so call out if you hit trouble and we'll try and find you."

 

"And if you see girls about 5 foot 5 and 5 foot 8, with either curly black or straight black hair, for fuck's sake don't shoot," Courfeyrac passed on. Then, with a nod, they split into their pre-decided groups of five, and waited for the advance group to pull open the entrance where Gavroche had last seen his sister.

 

The first group was composed of Enjolras, Gavroche, Jehan, Courfeyrac and Grantaire, mainly because they were the most likely to be able to find and recognize Eponine and Cosette. Combeferre and the rest of the Human Volunteer Force who'd come to help were mixed in with PDS people who kept giving their uniforms uneasy second glances. Enjolras spared one last glance back at the motley group who'd come together for an urgent rescue and ducked into the hallway to follow Gavroche.

 

The little blighter was nearly soundless on his feet, hissing back "Shh!" every other second until Enjolras tapped his shoulder and raised a finger to his lips in warning. Grantaire, ever serious, appeared to be stifling a laugh behind them.

 

They took two lefts and a right, walking down nearly identical hallways in half-light, as Gavroche darted ahead to peer into doorways and shake his head back at them. Courfeyrac strode forward to intercept the kid and pushed him back to the center of the group, shaking his head.

 

"Stay back there," he whispered, un-holstering his taser gun and raising it chest-level. Courfeyrac gestured for one of the adults to join him in clearing the rooms they passed, and Grantaire stepped forward with his heavy metal baton at the ready. Enjolras scowled, starting forward before Jehan laid a hand across his chest.

 

"Grantaire's got this," they muttered. "He has training."

 

"For--" Enjolras muttered, before biting back the obvious question. What the hell kind of training could Grantaire have that prepared him for this?

 

They made their steady procession down two more halls before they found the first sign of life-- a room with the hum of electronics coming from it.

 

"Monitor room," Gavroche whispered, pointing at the ceiling. "Security cameras."

 

Courfeyrac nodded back, then walked briskly to the doorway, knocking it open with one hand while the other aimed inside. A heavy thump sounded a second later. Courfeyrac ducked inside, then peered back out at the rest of them. "Clear!" he whispered.

 

They followed him in to a room that seemed more composed of screens than wall-space. Courfeyrac was tapping the keyboard of the control computer, cycling it between camera views. A portly man lay twitching and moaning next to his feet. 

 

"Musta robbed an electronics store," Gavroche remarked to himself, taking in the set-up. Enjolras scanned the screens, hands twisted together.

 

"There!" Jehan murmured, reaching forward to a screen on the top right. It showed a room with two cages, one with two small occupants and one with two small and two medium-sized occupants. "Is that them?"

 

Enjolras's heart soared for an instant, then dropped when he realized where they were. "They're stuck in with unmedicated PDS patients!" he breathed, starting for the door. Grantaire caught him almost gently before he took another step.

 

"Hold on, Enj, we need to figure out where the fuck they are," he said. His arms stayed braced around Enjolras's shoulders, a steadying weight blocking him from the door.

 

"Jehan, can you tie him up?" Courfeyrac asked absently, pulling a set of handcuffs from his pockets and pointing a shoe at the zapped guard. "I think I'm close to finding the list of room numbers."

 

A handheld radio next to the keyboard gave a chirp. "Claquesous, all good?" Courfeyrac jumped slightly, looking back around them with wide eyes. He reached over to the radio after a moment, pressed the talk button and gave a low "Mm-hmm" sound.

 

"Are the bitches bit yet?" the other voice persisted.

 

"Mm-mm" Courfeyrac responded, tapping more quickly through the camera views. Putting the radio down, he turned to whisper, "Room 145 B, guys, it looks like it's three halls away."

 

"Well then, stop fucking around and come help me wake the little buggers up!" the radio man shouted.

 

"Okay," Courfeyrac responded, ducking his head to check on Jehan's progress with the handcuffs. The portly man gave a moan as his hands were tied around the foot of the computer-laden table.

 

"Was that-- are you beating off?" the radio demanded, having caught the background noise. Grantaire, the bastard, leaned forward into Enjolras's shoulder and shook with silent laughter.

 

"Uh... yeah." Courfeyrac answered. 'Help!' he mouthed at Enjolras.

 

"Well, finish that and then come help me," the radio responded. "Fuckwit."

 

With a final click, the conversation ended.

 

They all stood there for a second, hardly breathing.

 

"Come on, that was Babet," Gavroche said, breaking the silence. "We gotta go, he likes making people hurt."

 

They ducked out of the room, setting off at a half-run while Courfeyrac opened his channel to the other groups and whispered where they were headed. Enjolras and the rest abandoned looking into rooms to clear them, hoping to reach Cosette and Eponine first.

 

They very nearly made it, too.


End file.
